


Whistle in the Dark

by TricksterShi



Series: Home Across the Universe [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Violence, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Temporary Character Death, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 65,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TricksterShi/pseuds/TricksterShi
Summary: Whistle in the dark:(colloquial) To make a show of bravery despite one’s fears; to put on a brave front.~Sometimes a family is made up of a damaged time traveler, his younger self, their dad, a tiny asthmatic, a badass nurse, a sheriff’s station, and a pack of werewolves.Or, Stiles learns to make his own normal.  Given everything he’s lost, sort of gained back, and the mistakes he’s made along the way it’s not an easy road.  Especially when one of his previous actions comes to bite him in the ass.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Past Stiles Stilinski/Lydia Martin mentioned, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski & Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Original Character(s), Stiles Stilinski & Stiles Stilinski
Series: Home Across the Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978774
Comments: 47
Kudos: 183





	1. Grief Transmissions

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for a brief mention of self-harm and descriptions of an anxiety attack. 
> 
> I'm doing my best to get all or most of this part written before NaNo starts on Sunday. I figured I would go ahead and post each chapter as it's finished instead of all at once again as motivation to move my fingers. 
> 
> This piece is unbeta'd and canon is like a condiment, I only add it where I want it.

When Stiles was ten-years-old he fell off the roof and broke his leg. Dad had beaten the ambulance to the hospital and held his hand while Stiles got his cast. He’d berated Stiles for going up on the roof in the first place, what the hell had he been thinking?

Stiles had told him he was playing Batman. It was a lie. Not the first he’d ever told but the first calculated one to keep more pain from his Dad. Stiles had actually gone up there thinking if he was closer to the sky maybe his Mom could hear him better. Stiles hadn’t wanted to go to the cemetery by himself and he hadn’t wanted his voice to get caught in all the empty corners of the house. He figured if he was up high, close to the sky, maybe the signal would be better.

But he couldn’t have said any of that to Dad, who had been drinking late at night when he thought Stiles was asleep, who couldn’t even mention Mom without choking off his words and going awkward and silent and hurt.

So Stiles had lied. Dad had been mad at him, frustrated at his stupidity, but he hadn’t been sad. Somehow that made the lie easier to live under. Eventually, Stiles healed and Dad told that story with exasperated fondness. It became a funny anecdote he shared with the other deputies, often with a shake of his head or an eye roll as if to say,  _ can you believe this kid? _

It became a habit after that. Play the lovable, clumsy idiot to cover for anything that would hurt Dad, whether that was nightmares about losing Mom, bouts of angry sadness that turned into depression, or the fact that Stiles had hurt himself intentionally for a while when he felt like he was drowning.

By the time the issues turned into werewolves, hunters, and supernatural warfare the pattern was already established. And in the end, Dad got hurt anyway. 

Those were the kind of thoughts that drove Stiles up onto the roof, away from the suffocating darkness of his room and the damn nightmares of hunters and cages. Stiles wasn’t so uncoordinated as he had been at ten. It was actually cool how easy it was to climb up the shingled slope to the highest point. 

Stiles craned his neck back to get a good look at the sky. Stars twinkled and satellites blipped in the ink-stained dark. The moon waxed beyond the treeline, a pale face caught in the branches like a fish in a net. Stiles couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at the moon without calculating trepidation.

“Hey, Dad. I, uh.” Stiles cleared his throat and wrapped his arms around himself. “I guess I should apologize for not trying to talk to you sooner. A lot’s been going on. You don’t have to worry, though. I’m okay. For the most part, anyway. I’ve got people taking care of me. I’m…”

Stiles scrubbed at his face.

“You know, I had so many things to say before I actually got up here. I can’t think of a single one right now, how stupid is that? Usually can’t shut me up even when my life depends on it.”

The wind brushed over Stiles’s skin. It was a little chilly but he didn’t mind. It felt good. Felt real. 

In a few hours, Stiles would be going to school for the first time since he helped destroyed the one in his world. He should have been getting some sleep, resting, but every nerve in his body was stretched taut and awake. Stiles couldn’t decide if he was ready for that or not.

Stiles had a lot of memories tied to the high school. Not all of them good. He’d almost died somewhere on that property more times than he cared to count, including recently. Not to mention all the times something big, scary, and murderous had chased him through the halls. 

But, according to all local sources, none of that was likely to be a repeat. That should have comforted Stiles. It did in some ways. In others, it was difficult to trust. Stiles didn’t want to label himself a pessimist but his paranoia scoffed in the back of his mind and said,  _ give it a few weeks. _

But he was going anyway. Dad-- the dad alive in this world-- made it clear that he expected Stiles to go to school. Get an education. Settle into a new kind of normal. The trouble was, what constituted normal didn’t feel right anymore. Normal was for other people. Normal was an illusion, a trick. It existed until reality pried its eyes open and made it impossible to unsee what was revealed.

Stiles was going to try anyway. Not for himself but because Dad wanted him to. This Dad already knew about the supernatural, had been living and working alongside it for almost a year, and he still thought Stiles had a chance to salvage some kind of balance between it and normality. 

Stiles appreciated the faith this Dad had in him, he just couldn’t muster any for himself.

These were not the thoughts he wanted to have at three in the goddamn morning but Stiles’s brain had never been a cooperative bastard. And there were words in his chest, things he’d shoved down and refused to look at ever since he crash-landed in this world. All the things he could’a, should’a, would’a said to his Dad if he’d just had the time.

He couldn’t dig a single one of them out and say it, even now. They stuck to his insides like cockleburs, those mean ass little pieces of vegetation with barbed spines that worked their way deep and made you pay in blood to work them back out. Stiles had given enough blood recently.

The starry sky offered no answers, nor did Stiles feel any sort of presence. He stayed up there until his skin was puckered with goosebumps and his eyes itched to close.

“I miss you,” he said before he climbed back in his window.

He hoped he was high enough that the signal reached.

~

"I'm gonna throw up."

"No, you're not because everything is fine."

Dad handed him a paper bag anyway. Stiles worked on breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

"This is completely unnecessary," Stiles muttered.

"Stiles, you've faced down monsters, an apocalypse, and a handful of drug dealers without proper backup." Dad gave him a side-eye and raised-eyebrow combination that said while, yes, he was sort of proud of Stiles he wasn't entirely comfortable with it and it should  _ never happen again _ . He continued, "This is just high school. You've got this."

Dad's faith in Stiles was amazing. It was wonderful and heartwarming and rolled into the cheesiness of a Lifetime movie. It also did nothing to quell the absolute gut rending terror that had seized him since waking that morning.

"I'm not really missing much. I could totally homeschool myself at this point. You've never seen me on a research binge, I could graduate early and everything."

"I'm sure you could but that's not the point." Dad flicked on the turn signal and pulled into the school parking lot. "The point is that you are seventeen. You've been through hell but you're on the other side of it. Now it's time to learn how to live again. Part of that is therapy. The other part is integrating into normal activities. Ergo, school."

"That's kind of the problem," Stiles admitted. "It doesn’t feel real anymore."

Spending his time and energy as a vigilante had helped Stiles maintain the kind of normal he had known for the past four years. The constant thrum of anxiety and awareness running under his veins. The analytical mind space where he poured over evidence and connections for potential threats. The paranoid tweaks to his spells and charms to create better and more creative uses for them to fight and to conceal himself.

Then everything changed. He almost died (sadly, normal) but the ball didn’t keep rolling. It stopped, right under the foot of Deputy John Stilinski who moved heaven, earth, and an impressive amount of forged paperwork to take Stiles home. And that was great. It was weird and different and he lived in a house with his younger nine-year-old self which was  _ trippy as hell _ but he was home. He never thought he’d be able to go home again, much less have a Dad there who was alive and well.

But the anxiety, the hyper-awareness, it was still in Stiles. It crawled around like manic raccoons under his skin because he didn’t have a threat to fixate on. So the manic raccoons believed that there was a threat  _ somewhere _ and just because he couldn’t see it and everyone told him there wasn’t anything for him to guard against didn’t mean it  _ wasn’t _ there. So he had to be vigilant, he had to work on his magic, he had to do a million things that would keep him and everyone else alive except Dad kept telling him  _ that wasn’t Stiles’s job anymore. _

Stiles knew it was incredibly fucked up to miss being in the middle of dire situations where grievous injury and death hung over his head like a guillotine. Or maybe ‘miss’ wasn’t a good word. He hated it but it was familiar, it was comforting. As if the world going to shit around him meant things were proceeding as scheduled.

Dad was right about the needing therapy part. Stiles was man enough to admit that. He just wished that trying to get back to normal didn’t feel like a failure. Like he was giving up. Turning a blind eye.

They parked and Dad turned to Stiles.

"Look, I can only try to imagine what it's like for you, and I'm sure it misses the mark by miles. But... I know you can do this. It won't be easy. You're going to struggle and have bad days but you've already overcome impossible odds. You've got all the determination and tenacity in here," Dad pointed at his heart, "-to overcome this, too. You  _ deserve _ to overcome it and to have a good life."

Stiles looked away and blinked at the moisture in his eyes.

"Besides, if I let you get out of going to school I'll catch hell from Mini-Stiles. If he has to suffer you do, too, it's only fair."

Dad clapped him on the shoulder.

"Wow. You suck so much right now."

"I do my best."

Stiles had never been the new kid before. Well, except his first day of kindergarten but that didn’t count. He’d certainly been on the side of the stares and whispers before but never the receiving end. Not for being new, anyway. The fact that he was being escorted through the front doors by a deputy added fuel to the fire. Stiles didn’t meet any eyes, just followed Dad through to the front office.

It was strange to be here again. Despite the fact that he’d spent nearly four years roaming the halls and going to class it seemed slightly out of focus. There were obvious differences, like the location of trophy cases that had been moved in Stiles’s world, or the way the front desk was actually two office desks instead of a constructed desk/counter combo. But mostly it was the same.

The last time Stiles had been in it he’d almost bled to death. But that wasn’t the memory that ghosted through his thoughts. Before that the last time he saw Beacon Hills High in one piece had been just before he helped rig it to blow. It had hurt more than he’d thought it would. 

No one had been attending at the time.  Only half the people the ghost riders took were returned and two days later trigger happy hunters chased some sort of crazed, murderous spirit creature into the county. It was the last straw for the remaining citizens, who picked up and fled, leaving an empty battleground for the pack to take the thing out.

Stiles never did figure out what the creature was. The final explosion incinerated it. In the absence of the fire department, the fires grew out of control and engulfed the town. That should have been the end of it. It had  _ felt _ like the end of everything but the hunters took offense to be deprived of their kill and--

And one thing had led to another and Stiles had ended up here. Again. Stiles tracked the path to the nurse’s office, which was just down the way from the front office. He’d bled out all along this hallway just weeks ago and nearly died. Again.

Stiles twisted his backpack straps to keep from touching the marks through his shirt. The stitches came out the week before and Melissa had cleared him for school. There was still a deep ache there like the deep tissue was still kitting itself together. Or maybe it was just the stupid raccoons. 

“The counselor will see you in a few minutes, she’s finishing up with another student,” the woman at the front desk told Dad.

So they took up two of the office chairs by the door and waited. Stiles’s leg bounced up and down and his backpack, brand new, felt pretty empty with only a couple of notebooks, his lunch, and fifty hidden spells stitched to the inside fabric. He had more in his clothing, too, but no knife and no jeep to keep his bat inside. He only had one key on a lanyard tucked under his shirt which went to the front door of the house. He felt kind of naked, to be honest.

Dad knocked his knee against Stiles’s.

“Hey, do you know why melons have weddings?”

Stiles blinked at his Dad. 

“What?”

“Do you know why melons have weddings?”

Stiles discreetly pinched himself but, no, that hurt and he had ten fingers so he was awake. Was Dad stroking out? He looked fine, just raised his eyebrow, and waited for an answer.

“No?”

“Because they cantaloupe.”

Stiles stared back for probably a bit too long before he got it and an involuntary giggle made it out of his mouth.

“What the fuck,” Stiles covered his mouth to muffle himself. 

“Language,” Dad warned, lightly, and settled back in the chair with a smug smile. Then, “How many apples grow on a tree?”

Stiles bit his lip.

“All of them.”

Stiles turned his snort into a cough when the lady at the front desk glanced at them.

“How do you tell the difference between a bull and a milk cow?”

“Pretty sure one of them has a--”

“It’s either one or the utter.”

“Oh my  _ god.” _

By the time the counselor called for them, Stiles realized he wasn’t twitching or bouncing his leg anymore. Dad had a satisfied and knowing look on his face. The raccoons were quiet for a moment.

Stiles let Dad handle the interaction but answered what questions he could about his previous schooling. Dad had asked him all the same questions and whoever did the rest of the paperwork had turned over a decently official-looking transcript and test scores. The counselor went over those with them and decided Stiles would be a junior again and go into senior year next fall. 

That kind of stung but Stiles figured it was fair considering what his senior year had been like.

“Here you go, look that over and see what you think.”

Stiles took the schedule and skimmed through it. He would be repeating a lot of what he already knew. Maybe that was for the best. He could coast along on familiar ground to finish the second semester, ease into things. But one class stuck out.

“Is there any way I can get out of gym?”

“Would you rather play a sport instead?”

“I’d actually like to avoid all of that if possible. I just…” Stiles struggled to find the words but Dad jumped in.

“Is it about the scars?”

Stiles nodded.

So John took over. The official version of things was that Stiles was a victim of human trafficking. That wasn’t Stiles’s first choice but it was the only one that would explain the scars, the PTSD, the large gap in his education, etc.,. Not to mention being the missing kid whose face had been plastered from Beacon Hills to either end of the state. 

“I’d rather not have the horror show on display for the rumor mill,” Stiles added when Dad finished talking.

The counselor sat back and removed her glasses. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to you, Jimmy. How are you faring now?”

Stiles shrugged. “Good as I can be.”

“I’ve got him seeing a therapist every Friday, so he’ll take off for that around three o’clock.”

The counselor made a note in his file. “And physically? Do you have any exemptions or complications we need to inform the nurse about?”

When Stiles didn’t answer Dad took over. “He’s just recovered from an attack in the preserve. A, uh, druggie was keeping a mountain lion as a pet, it escaped and he came across it. Stiles lost a lot of blood during the incident but he’s gaining his strength back. The hospital cleared him to go to school, though.”

The counselor’s eyes widened. “You were the one the papers talked about. A mountain lion attack?”

The papers kept his name out of it since he was a minor. The story was a little fantastic but, again, they’d had to make it match the evidence left behind. Couldn’t exactly tell the world a feral omega werewolf had been on the loose in a state of unchecked rage and aggression. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re back on your feet, Jimmy. I’ll talk to the coach and make some alternate arrangements for you regarding gym class.”

“I can always write essays instead of participating, or work on equipment,” he offered.

“I’ll let him know.”

They finished their meeting and Dad walked him out. Stiles stuffed his hand in his pocket to hide the tremors. 

“Check in with me around lunch and let me know how you’re doing.”

“I will.”

Dad hugged him tight. “You got this.”

Stiles nodded and made himself stand a bit taller. Dad was right. He’d done this before. He’d done it with monsters slinking around killing people. He’d done it while helping his best friend through lycanthropy. He’d done it after being possessed by a dark fox spirit.

He could do it when the world wasn’t ending in fire and blood and screams, too. He had promised both dads he would do his best. So he would try.

Stiles would try.

~

The first couple of classes weren’t too bad. He caught a few stares. A couple people whispered. Stiles ignored it. He made notes out of habit to keep his hands busy and went over the spells he had stitched into his clothing when he finished with the notes. It was more of a maintenance thing than anything else. Just a check to make sure all of them were up and working, or waiting to work should he call on them.

One was fritzing. On the underside of his sleeves, Stiles had sewn a weighted-hem spell in black thread. It was to keep the sleeves from riding up his arms and revealing the rope scars around each wrist. The spell needed some tweaking. He sensed something in the anchor points was off, or maybe it was the other active spells interfering. He’d have to be careful and take a closer look over the weekend to fix it.

Every class he went to Stiles found himself scanning the faces of the other students. A few were vaguely familiar, more like he had seen them at some point around town rather than actually knowing their names. That wasn’t surprising. Stiles hadn’t known many people or their families outside Scott and Melissa or his immediate neighbors, most of whom were geriatric when Stiles was nine. But there was something else. A mild kind of tug in his gut that something was missing.

It took him until fourth period to figure out what it was. He was looking for Scott.

Not the Scott of this world, who was a nine-year-old asthmatic currently with this world’s Stiles at the elementary school. But Stiles’s Scott, his alpha, best friend, and who was very much dead.

The sudden reminder of loss was a kick in the face. Stiles’s heart wrenched. Students shunted him to the side of the hall as they made their way to the next class. Stiles should have done the same. As his breath quickened and the raccoons panicked, Stiles blundered his way out of the hall and to the nearest bathroom. He locked himself in a stall and stuffed his fist into his mouth to keep from screaming.

Scott was dead. He was gone. Stiles knew this. He had come to terms with it.

Well, no, not actually. He had acknowledged it as fact. Blamed himself in wide measures, but it hadn’t been like this before. This was the school. Scott was just under the skin of things, entrenched in the paint, the metal, the shrill ring of the bell. He was ingrained into the walls and wooden desks and every worn page in the library. Scott was dead but his memory there was so alive it might have stepped around the corner, met Stiles’s eyes, and tilted his head as if to say,  _ Come on, I found something. _

It was just like after Stiles’s mom died. When he would wake up, go downstairs, and for maybe five minutes didn’t remember that she was gone. Then reality would hit and it was like losing her all over again.

Stiles made himself breathe. Made himself count heartbeats. Made himself calm down.

The tardy bell rang and he was officially late but he went to class anyway and found a seat.

It was only January. It took him six months to stop forgetting his mom wouldn’t be downstairs reading her sci-fi paperbacks while bustling around the kitchen to make breakfast with half her attention. Stiles just had to get it through his head that Scott wasn’t there, would never be there, the way Stiles wanted him to be. Stiles would do it the same way he eventually got it through his head about Mom. By facing it down every day.

The empty desk across the aisle loomed like a growing sinkhole. The Scott shape that was missing might as well have been a siren for how loud it screamed at Stiles.

~

The bell rang for lunch and Derek Hale was waiting for Stiles by the row of lockers.

Derek was seventeen and skinny, tiny by comparison to the Derek Stiles knew. No stubble or leather jacket. He was soft in the face but showed hints of the man he was going to become.

Stiles had the insane urge to wrap him in a blanket and shove him in a corner so no one would ever take advantage of him. He was too young and soft and  _ small _ .

“Hey, Derek.”

Derek started in surprise but recovered with a thoughtful expression.

“Stiles. Or do you like to be called Jimmy? Mom wasn’t clear.”

“Stiles is good.”

They lapsed into silence as other students streamed around them. Stiles had no idea what to say. It was a first and it was irritating. All the things Stiles would normally have said were out the window. It was partly why he never sought Derek out when he was running around as the Shadow. Stiles didn’t know this Derek who wasn’t traumatized halfway to hell. He didn’t know how to interact with him. Was it terrible of Stiles to hate that? It probably was.

That was the rock that became their foundation, after all. After enough trauma, Stiles began to get Derek in a way he hadn’t been capable of before. It had softened Derek to Stiles and his...everything, as well. Made it easier for Derek to trust him, lean on him. That had gone both ways.

“Hey, you okay?”

Stiles came back to the present. The hallway was almost clear. “Yes. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at the obvious lie. Stiles smothered the urge to both laugh and cry.

“It’s lunchtime, right?”

Derek rolled his shoulders with a nod. “You want to go grab a bite?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Stiles surprised himself. It wasn’t even a lie.

~

This Derek was a conversationalist. They got a basket of burgers and fries from the little place down the road and ate on the curb by the lacrosse field. Derek was into basketball, sketching, and wanted to be an architect. He also ran the preserve with his older brother for training and patrol in his spare time. But lately, since the omega vs Stiles incident, other pack members had been taking shifts as well since the omega almost got into Beacon Hills.

“How are you healing, by the way?”

Stiles shrugged and wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans, much to Derek’s disgust. “Pretty good. Got the stitches out about a week ago.”

“Mom said they were pretty bad.”

Stiles hummed in agreement. “Definitely not a fun time. I have learned my lesson about going up against rogue werewolves with nothing but human-grade offensive spells and a knife.”

“You went up against that werewolf with a  _ knife _ ?”

Stiles waited but Derek did not get all up in his space, demand to see the evidence, or berate Stiles for being an idiot. Stiles swallowed the misery and shrugged.

“I was prepared for taking down dangerous humans at the time. Wasn’t expecting a werewolf. I definitely  _ should _ have, given past experiences, but I’ve remedied that, believe me.”

“How?”

Which was the question that led to Stiles opening his flannel overshirt and explaining the spells hidden along the seams as crude and paranoid embroidery. Stiles spent every night since Christmas sewing them into the new clothes he’d received, along with protective amulet-type items for Dad, Mini-Stiles, and Scott. The boys got the jewelry and Dad had agreed to wear a necklace tucked under his shirt. Dad didn’t know about all the spells Stiles had outfitted the cruiser with yet. Stiles had a few more to put in before it was complete.

Derek shook his head.

“I was right about you being a witch of some sort. Never thought you’d be a warrior witch.”

“Badasses come in all shapes and sizes.” Stiles finished his fries. “And why did you think I was responsible for all the weird smells in the woods? I don’t think there’s such a thing as a chaos magician.”

“There could be. Witches don’t exactly advertise everything they can do,” Derek argued.

“True, but I can assure you the weird smells in the woods were not me. I didn’t go back into them until I followed Scott and Mini-Stiles.”

“So you arrived in the woods.”

Stiles caught himself before he answered. “Is that bet still going on?”

“Yep.”

Huh. Stiles thought Talia would have told people about the situation by now. Of course, he hadn’t actually met with Talia yet. He had expected to over the Christmas break but Dad had been adamant he stay and watch Scott and Mini-Stiles and rest up.

“Have you changed your bet yet?”

“Yep. You are a three-fold mystery. I already have two parts figured out. Pretty close to the third.”

“Yeah? What are the first two?”

“Witch and the vigilante.”

Stiles lowered his voice even though there wasn’t anyone around. “I thought those two were common knowledge now.” At least among people close to Dad.

“Nah, Shawn wouldn’t confirm anything about the vigilante business. Laura and I had to listen in on one of Mom’s meetings. Got caught for it, but.” Derek shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Well, I'm not giving you any hints. I think Laura would exact some kind of horrible revenge if I showed favoritism."

"You would be right."

"But I guess I could tell you I am  _ not _ an abominable snowman. Hope that narrows down your search criteria.”

Derek snorted soda out of his nose. Stiles laughed and handed him the last of the napkins.

“Does Laura still have money on me being an alien?”

“Nah, she’s switched gears, too. She won’t tell me, though. She’s convinced she’s gonna figure it out before me and Shawn.”

“Pretty sure Shawn already knows.”

Derek stopped mopping up the drink. He growled low in his throat. “Oh, I’m gonna get him. He swears up and down he doesn’t have the full story.”

Stiles shrugged. Given how close Dad and Shawn were Stiles was certain Shawn knew more than Stiles probably wanted him to, but he’d kind of expected it. They were partners. Dean Tyler, the partner his dad had had in Stiles’s world, had basically been an uncle to Stiles and had shown up to holidays and school functions when he and Dad could get off for them. 

“Why did you fight werewolves before?” Derek asked.

Stiles noted the ill-concealed wariness in his tone.

“Used to have a pack, actually. Had to fight a lot of things to keep us all alive.”

“You were their emissary? Still in training?”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I was the alpha’s second. I guess, I mean, it’s not like we had time for official titles or anything but, yeah. That’s pretty much what I was.”

Come to think of it, that was probably a big reason why Stiles was still so out of sorts. Second in command entailed a lot of inherent responsibility and control. Dad had made it clear that Stiles didn’t need to fulfill that kind of role anymore but he couldn’t just  _ let go _ . 

“My Uncle Peter is my mom’s second. It used to be my dad but he died a while back.”

Stiles’s heartbeat must have gone through the roof. He avoided Derek’s gaze. Peter was alive. Sure. Yes, of course, Peter would be alive and well because there was no Hale fire this time around. Maybe he wasn’t crazy. That was a nice thought.

Stiles had no idea how he would react if faced with Peter. They hadn’t exactly been close, ever. Peter hadn’t appeared with the other taken people after the ghost riders left. It had been an even chance on whether he had remained trapped or if he had simply disappeared in the confusion.

“I’m sorry.”

Derek continued to study him. “Thanks. Not to be rude, but you’re pretty young to be an alpha’s second.”

“Well, my alpha was my age, so. Not all that weird in context.”

They both jumped when the bell to end lunch rang out over campus.

“Crap, I need to get to biology. What do you have next?”

“Uh, English.”

“Do you want to meet up later, after school, or something?”

Stiles’s phone buzzed. Shit. He’d forgotten to call Dad.

“I would but I’m being picked up today. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Okay, catch you then.”

Derek took off loping across the field. Stiles took out his phone and called Dad back.

“Hey, sorry. Got kind of caught up.”

“Everything okay?” Papers shuffled in the background and Stiles imagined Dad cradling the phone with his shoulder while he tidied his files up.

“Yeah. Had lunch with Derek Hale.”

“Oh? How did that go?”

Dered had already disappeared into the school. Stiles took his time following. “Good? I guess. I mean, he’s Derek but he’s not. Lots of similarities. Lots of strange new things.”

“Like what?”

“Well, he smiles and laughs. Doesn’t glare at the world because it was a bastard to him every time he tried to do something good.”

“And you miss that.”

Stiles swallowed. “It’s a good thing, right? It means this version of him missed out on a whole lot of pain.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Stiles was going to start tearing up again so he got his stuff from his locker and said, “Well, I gotta go. Need to head to English.”

“Alright, son. I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours.”

Stiles ended the call and stuffed the phone in his pocket. He could do this. A couple more hours.

~

English was fine. Algebra was fine. Gym was…

“So, Miss Moira said you’re going to be my equipment rat. That’s good, that’s useful. You’re already ahead of the other wimps and losers with gym exemptions. You can start by going through the closets and cleaning up whatever is in there.”

Coach Finstock tossed Stiles a ring of keys and pointed to the closets. 

“Uh, sure thing, Coach.”

“I got two rules for you, Stilinski. You show up to do the work and you shut up while you’re doing it. You want to earn extra credit then you can bring me one of those cupcakes from the cafeteria.”

Stiles twirled the keys. “The packaged cupcakes or the ones Mrs. Hoagel bakes and hoards in the kitchen for the lunch staff?”

Coach Finstock leveled him a wacky stare.

“You don’t get extra credit for the easy path, Stilinski.”

“Good to know, Coach.”

Finstock waved Stiles off like a fly and went to yell at the kids on the court. Stiles twirled the keys again. Getting copies of them all would be so much easier this time around. And he wouldn’t even have to wear a dress to do it.

Stiles spent the next forty-five minutes in one of the closets. Where there wasn’t so much a system to all of the equipment as there was a giant heaping mess that would make a packrat ashamed to call it home. There was also the faint stench of death somewhere that made him want to yark all over the broken, battered, and somewhat smelly equipment.

Stiles was beginning to regret the offer. Just a smidge.

“You have definitely gotten your hands dirty with worse,” he muttered to himself. “Definitely worse. So much worse than this.”

Stiles disappeared for ten minutes and came back with a stash of cleaning supplies pilfered from the custodial closet. Armed and ready, he got to work.

The forty-five minutes went by quick. Stiles didn’t think of anything except how nasty cleaning old sweat and grime off of shoulder pads was and then the bell rang. He’d made somewhat of a dent.

He gave Coach the keys back and grimaced at the filth all over his hands and arms. Most everyone had fled the gym, eager to get off campus. Stiles lingered until the last of the students were truly gone and the locker room was quiet. Only then did he venture in to wash up.

He didn’t get undressed. Just deactivated the charm on his sleeves and rolled them up. He washed as fast as he could, ears strained for voices or footsteps over the rush of water from the showerhead. 

As he was drying off something flashed in his peripheral. Stiles ducked away and yanked his sleeves down. He didn’t hear anything. A moment later he peered around the lockers and held his breath. Nothing.

Stiles sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

Fucking hypervigilance. 

Dad was out in the parking lot in the cruiser when Stiles made it out there. Two familiar profiles were in the back as well. Stiles slid into the front passenger seat. People were still watching and whispering but Stiles was able to push them away once he closed the door. Then it was just him, Dad, Mini-Stiles, and Scott.

“Hey, how did everything go?” Dad asked.

“I managed,” Stiles said.

The warmth that radiated from Dad’s smile was enough to push the Scott-shaped panic attack and the antsiness and the general sense of delayed doom hanging over his head to the background for a minute.

“Good job.”

Dad squeezed his shoulder and pulled out of the parking lot. That night Scott stayed over for dinner and homework. All three of them worked at the table while Dad made spaghetti. Dad kept looking over when he thought Stiles wasn’t paying attention. He had a small half-smile on his face. He was happy.

Stiles went back out onto the roof after Dad went to bed. Clouds stretched a thin skein across the sky. Somewhere in the next neighborhood a dog barked and a cat yowled back. 

“Hey, Scott. Was missing you today, buddy.”

Stiles drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The words for Scott choked him up from his heart to the back of his throat. Stiles buried his face in his knees and cried in fits and starts, biting his knee through his jeans to keep it quiet. Then he stopped. Stiles dried his face, blew his nose, and tipped his head up toward the sky.

It was too cloudy for a signal to get through, anyway, so he swallowed the jumble of words that made him want to scream, again and again until they had pressed down under his ribs. Stiles wished he could swallow a rock heavy enough to keep the words sunk in his gut. At least until he could articulate them without turning into such a mess. 

When Stiles finally went back inside he pressed his face into the pillow and curled up in a ball.

In the morning he would assure Dad he could walk to school on his own, that he was fine, that he was managing. And he would make himself manage until it was time to leave again. He could do that. He had done it before.

He would do it again, even if it ripped his guts up on the inside.

  
  



	2. Walking Wounded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a flashback, panic attack, descriptions of anxiety and depression. Also, I don't mess with makeup for myself, so that whole section is... Yeah, I just winged it. *authory creative license hand wave*
> 
> This part took a lot longer than I anticipated, sorry about that. Been dealing with my own mental health issues this week and they've been a bitch. Still not sure I'm happy with this chapter but I'm tired of looking at it and ready to work on the next one, so, enjoy.

The fritzing hem spell continued through the week and Stiles couldn’t figure out how to fix it without fucking up two other spells near it. Apparently, there was such a thing as too many charms in reserve so Stiles had to go the old fashioned route.

He’d forgotten how anxiety riddled it could be to do things in a small town. Like buy makeup from the store when he was a guy and highly recognizable. Stiles paid as quick as he could and got out of there, aware of the intense and disapproving stares from the elderly cashier. When he got home he went straight to his room. Mini-Stiles and Scott were playing video games and yelling at the TV so Stiles was confident they would be occupied for a while.

That was good. Because he needed time to figure this stuff out.

Stiles spread the makeup out on the bathroom counter. Lydia had explained once about the magic of makeup to hide all sorts of things like bruises and scars and a terrible night’s sleep. She had helped Stiles cover up his own bruises more than once before everything went to shit.

But Lydia had been a pro and her makeup collection was more of a war chest and Stiles could only get away with buying just a little bit. The stuff was almost as expensive as the stuff that had gone into the pack’s actual war chest, not to mention there were so many different brands and shades and types it was enough to make Stiles’s head swim.

But he remembered enough and set about trying to remember how she had applied it. Stiles lost track of anything that wasn't the mission in front of him. Tongue between his teeth, he experimented with the liquids, the powders, and the creams. Nothing really looked right. The scars were raised and the makeup did little to hide some of the discoloration. Stiles hoped he wouldn't have to go back and exchange anything because he fucked up and got the skin tone wrong.

Movement at the door made Stiles jump and he found Mini-Stiles there watching the process. Stiles shifted from one foot to the other, painfully aware of how weird it looked with all the makeup scattered around and one of his wrists badly shaded and caked with powder.

"What's up, mini-me?"

Mini-Stiles took the question as permission to come in and poke at all the products on the counter. "What are you doing?"

"Um, well. Covering these up." Stiles shook one hand.

Mini-Stiles reached out for his arm and hesitated.

"Do they still hurt?"

"They're healed," Stiles assured him. "They ache sometimes, deep in the bone, but it's not bad."

Stiles held out his arm. He hadn't let Mini-Stiles see too many of his scars or wounds. His younger self didn't need the nightmare fodder, but Stiles knew sometimes his imagination made things bigger or worse than they actually were. Better to rip the bandaid off, so to speak, and just see what it was all about rather than wonder.

Mini-Stiles turned his hand over and examined the scars with a fierce sort of focus Stiles had never seen from the outside, like he was committing every twist and discoloration to memory. Which he was.

"How long were you tied up?"

Stiles glanced away. "Over a month."

Mini-Stiles chewed on his lip. "They didn't untie you or anything?"

"Sometimes. I wasn't always lucid, but I'm pretty sure they did. I think I'd have lost my hands otherwise."

"How..." Mini-Stiles frowned, mouth working to formulate the question. "How did you make it?"

This was not a conversation Stiles needed to have in a bathroom but his feet weren't inclined to move. Stiles was acutely aware of the small space and the bright light and how the rope scars stood out against his pale skin.

"I don't know," Stiles said. "I guess I... I knew the pack would come for me. They would look."

Stiles swallowed back the sharp tang of bile. He was awake and the bars of that cage were long gone but sometimes their memory was so real Stiles forgot he'd gotten out of them. He hadn't just drifted when he was in it. He'd made himself go so far into his head that sometimes he wondered if this world, this whole time travel situation, was just something he made up to cope with what was going on.

Down that way lay madness, though. Stiles chose to believe it this was real. It was too painful not to be.

Mini-Stiles let go of his arm.

"Can I help?" he gestured to the makeup.

"Do you even know what a quarter of this stuff is?"

Mini-Stiles shrugged. "Probably. I heard Lydia talking about it at school, she was giving the other girls instructions on how to wear it."

Stiles looked down at his wrist. The makeup stood out against his skin worse than a sore thumb and drew the eye rather than deflecting it. Mini-Stiles couldn’t make it much worse.

"Come on." Mini-Stiles gathered up the makeup and took it out to the bed and dumped it in the middle. He climbed up and sat on the end, cross-legged. Stiles followed, somewhat bemused. "Come on, get up here."

"You're getting pretty bossy, short stack."

Stiles followed him up and settled in. Mini-Stiles sorted through the makeup, squinting at the labels and sorting them into piles. When he was satisfied, Mini-Stiles opened a few and proceded to paint up Stiles's wrist. He used a rag to blend since Stiles hadn't bought any of the brushes.

Stiles didn't move the entire time. Mini-Stiles got lost in the work, tongue poking out between his teeth in concentration. It wasn't as off-putting as Stiles would have thought it would be. He'd barely been able to touch his wrists since he was freed. They had hurt too much at first, then it was just simple avoidance. Like with everything else.

Mini-Stiles was surprisingly gentle. And it didn't freak Stiles out much. Then again, it wasn't a stranger handling them, it was basically himself.

When Mini-Stiles finished Stiles lifted his arm to inspect it. It wasn't a professional job by any means but it looked a sight better than his own attempt.

"Dad says you shouldn't be ashamed of having those," Mini-Stiles said when he was done.

"I'm not."

Mini-Stiles leveled him a look. "Yeah, you are. You look at them the same way I look at my foot scar."

"What foot scar?"

Mini-Stiles toed off his shoe and shoved his foot into Stiles's face. Stiles flailed backwards to avoid the heel and saw the raised pink line that wrapped around the bottom of his foot and up to his ankle.

"I was kicking stuff because I was mad," Mini-Stiles explained. "It was an abandoned building and I didn't see the nail. I didn't think it was that bad and Scott wanted me to go to the hospital and we fought about it. I said some nasty things to him."

Mini-Stiles wouldn't meet his eyes. There was definitely more to that story.

"I yelled some more when he snitched on me but it was good he did. The nail was rusty and I had to get a shot or else my foot would have turned green and fallen off. It was hard to apologize to Scott, I felt really horrible."

Sympathy stirred in Stiles's heart.

"If it helps, Scotts tend to forgive their Stiles's pretty easy." Most of the time, anyway.

Stiles sniffed and ducked his head to rearrange the makeup piles.

"Yeah. But it still hurts me, you know? Just like yours. But you got yours different so it's not the exact same as mine. Someone did it to you. It was their fault."

It was Stiles's turn to look away. If he was trying to save his younger self nightmares and trauma it wouldn't be good to pop off with the first thing that came into his mind which was, _ I deserved what I got. _

Mini-Stiles was too young to start thinking that way. Though he probably already was to some extent. But Stiles's transgressions were far beyond what Mini-Stiles was capable of committing. 

"I don't like people looking at them," Stiles said instead. "It doesn't belong to them."

"You could always wear some of your bracelets-"

"No." The word came out harsher than he intended.

Hurt flashed across Mini-Stiles's face before it morphed into understanding.

"Oh.  _ Oh _ ."

"Besides," Stiles said after an awkward silence settled between them. "I'd like to wear short sleeves eventually."

If he could get good at the cover up he might go a bit wild in the summer and try a tank top. 

"What about magicking them away or something?"

Stiles shook his head.

"I've tried. I have a spell that distorts my face and my hair but it doesn't work on my scars. Not these at any rate."

"How come?"

Stiles shrugged but he had a theory. The ropes had been soaked in something that had constantly drained Stiles. Sometimes it had even felt as though the ropes were feeding off him. The ropes could have been charmed somehow, maybe in such a way that magic to remove or hide the scars didn't stick. That had to have been why he was so weak magically when he arrived here. Other than being stuck in a cage for a month with controlled food and water amounts, of course.

Stiles forced those thoughts away. "Hey, why don't you fix the other one and then you can help me with dinner. Dad's gonna be here for it."

Mini-Stiles squinted like he knew Stiles was deflecting but said,  "Okay, but video games after. Scott's been beating me in Mario Kart and I can't let that stand."

~

Stiles found himself up on the roof more often than not after Dad and Mini-Stiles went to bed. Most of the time he didn't say anything at all. Sometimes all he could get out was a short, _ hey, I really missed you today. _ But anything deeper, anything more threatened to choke him.

School went by in a haze of anxiety broken by Derek's presence at lunch. They had no classes together but Derek sought him out at lunch and they talked. They talked about a lot of things and Derek seemed to be getting a feel for Stiles and his personality. He didn't ask about Stiles being a vigilante or a witch or pry into what had happened before that. He didn't bring up anything surrounding the bet.

For a while he was worried that Talia had put Derek up to it, had made wasting his lunch with Stiles some sort of job like,  _ watch over the teenage lunatic, make sure he doesn’t curse anyone at school. _ But Derek, both his and this one, never spent time or energy where they didn’t want to. Derek paid attention in their conversations and brought up previous threads all the time and invited Stiles to play basketball after school. Sometimes Stiles accepted even though he was shit at making the basket.

Their most intense conversations centered around superhero movies, weirdly enough. Derek was strangely passionate about the X-Men.

"So if you could trade your wolfiness for a mutation, what power would you want?" Stiles asked one day. He'd already finished his lunch and sprawled on the grass of the lacrosse field. The weak February sun did little but glow behind its shield of clouds.

“Hmm. Probably teleportation. Popping in and out of places would be cool. I could save so much money on gas.”

Stiles laughed. “You don’t even own a car yet.”

“Laura bitches about it enough, I’ve got second hand annoyance,” Derek said. "What about you? What mutation would you trade your humanness for?"

"I always liked Professor X. Having the ability to always find everyone you care about has a lot of appeal.” So did the telepathy, because Stiles could have averted  _ so many _ problems if he could have fixed the awful communication issues between everyone. “But I couldn't pull off Stewart's or McAvoy's bald look.”

Stiles had his eyes closed and missed the sharp glance from Derek.

Despite his tentative friendship with Derek, Stiles still looked for Scott at odd points in the day. Each time was a kick in the face and some days were worse than others. One morning, just before February was about to turn into March, Stiles woke up and knew it was going to be a horrible day. His bones were heavy in his skin and anxiety hovered on the edge of his thoughts, waiting. But he dragged himself out of bed, poured coffee down his throat, and brushed off Dad's worried queries.

It was a rainy day so Dad insisted on driving him.

"Hey, call me if you need to, kiddo," Dad said before Stiles got out.

"I'm fine, I promise."

Dad wasn't quite convinced. He waited until Stiles said, “I will.”

Stiles made himself smile for good measure. It would have been easier to claw his way through concrete.

Stiles was soaked by the time he got in the doors and the rest of the morning just went downhill from there. He had forgotten his homework for first period and got read the riot act in front of the whole class. He slipped on the slick floor and landed on his ass after leaving second. There was a substitute in third who insisted on calling him James instead of Jimmy, which wasn't that bad but it was another irritation on top of a mounting hill.

Then, just as he was making his way to his locker to wait for Derek at lunch a rolling growl of thunder ripped through the sky and made the lights flicker and Stiles freaked the fuck out. He would have called it an out-of-body experience except he was minutely aware of every bit of his skin and he couldn't breathe and _ he had to run _ . 

Dimly, Stiles was aware of someone calling his name as he pushed through the crowd and tripped over people in his path.

The ghost riders were right behind him. Stiles heard the crack of their whips and felt the graze of their bullets. The wind whipped at his face. Gray flashed at the corners of his eyes. Riders on horses. Walls of a train station. Stale air and people in stasis and the constant, pulling urge to let his focus go and just...drift.

No, he couldn’t go back, he’d never make it back out.

Thunder broke again and Stiles tripped. He went down hard on his knees, got back up, kept going. Somehow he ended up in the empty boys’ locker room and wedged himself in a corner. It took Stiles an eternity to get the phone out of his pocket and then to dial a number.

“Stiles?”

Stiles’s lungs tried to breathe for him around the ricocheting of his heart.

“I’m- I’m having a real bad day.”

Stiles would feel embarrassed later about how his voice cracked. He would try to push the entire thing from his mind as he did with everything else. But right then he just wanted his Dad.

“Okay, how bad is it between one and ten?”

Stiles flinched at another roll of thunder.

“Twelve. And climbing.”

It was something his therapist had asked him to do, implementing the rating scale. It wasn’t his instinctual way of labeling his issues but Stiles had found a way to reconcile the scale with how he processed everything. His sense of his own well being tended to fall under one of three categories: I can deal with it, I can push through it, and Danger Will Robinson territory.

Dealing with it, meaning a rare, good day when the fucked-up-ness was there and draining but not particularly invasive was anywhere from a five to a seven. Eight through ten was pushing through it, which was his everyday normal because Stiles rarely had good days. Anything above ten was a full-on freakout that overrode his many, many coping mechanisms.

Stiles didn’t have a category below five. It wasn’t realistic.

“Okay, are you still at school?”

“Locker room. Kinda freaked. Had a flashback.” The hand not holding the phone dug into his leg, into the meat of his calf to ground himself.

Derek chose that moment to enter the locker room looking mildly panicked. “Stiles? Hey, are you okay?”

Stiles met his concerned eyes and looked away. Damn it. He hated for this Derek to witness any of this mess. There shouldn’t have even  _ been _ a mess over a stupid storm. It was a regular storm. Just regular thunder and lightning and a lot of rain and nothing sinister about it. Just Mother Nature throwing her weight around and giving the place a drink.

“Is someone there with you?” Dad asked.

“Derek.”

“Okay, do me a favor, kiddo. Do your breathing exercise for me.”

“Okay.”

“Give the phone to Derek.”

Stiles wordlessly held the phone out and counted off the space between his inhale and exhale. It was just normal rain. Just a normal storm.

“Yes, sir?” Derek crouched beside Stiles, one hand out like he wanted to touch his arm but wasn’t sure if it was welcome. Stiles wasn’t even sure. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad, his anxiety is all over the place, way worse than normal. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, we’ll meet you there.”

Dered ended the call and laid a gentle hand on Stiles’s forearm.

“Hey, your dad wants us to go to the office. He’s gonna come pick you up.”

It was pitiful how relieved that made Stiles feel.

“Can you stand?”

Stiles nodded. 

Derek got him to the office and Stiles sat there with his face buried in his hands. He couldn’t look or talk to anyone. He wished the floor would swallow him whole. He had been doing so good. Even when it was hard to breathe and he holed up in the bathroom Stiles at least held it together enough to make it through a goddamn day. Hell, it wasn’t like the sky hadn’t poured down after the ghost rider’s left in his world. Surely they’d gone through at least one storm after all that and he hadn’t freaked out on this level. Stiles would have remembered.

Derek sat with him in silence until Dad showed up, his jacket wet from the rain, forehead wrinkled with deep concern.

“Sorry for this,” Stiles muttered when he found his voice. He couldn’t tell if he was apologizing to Dad or Derek or both.

Dad nudged him up to standing.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Where’s your backpack?”

Stiles shrugged. He lost track of it at some point.

“I’ll find it, sir. I can drop it off later.”

This Derek was such a fucking boy scout. And Stiles was too messed up to appreciate or tease him about it.

Dad thanked Derek and Stiles spaced out until they got outside. The rain was still pouring and they were both soaked by the time they got into the cruiser. 

“We’ll run home and get you changed into something dry. I have some stuff to finish at the station and you can come hang out with me for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Sounds good.” Stiles didn’t want to be alone right then anyway, even at home. “How long is the storm supposed to last?”

“Rest of the night, last I heard.”

Great. Wonderful. That was all he needed, another damn restless night filled with nightmares and paranoia.

Stiles switched his sopping clothes for a baggy hoodie and another pair of jeans. Stiles wasn’t sure if he wanted to be in the station but the moment he entered the building a small sense of calm settled around his shoulders. It smelled of burnt coffee, sugary pastries, aftershave, and a hint of weed, though that was probably the high-as-a-kite man leaning against the wall as he was being booked.

Dad led him back to the office he shared with Shawn Hale and pointed out a puffy, high back chair by the window. “Go get off your feet.”

The chair was pretty comfy. Stiles found himself curling up in it while Dad returned to his desk and booted the computer up.

“Where’s your partner?” Stiles asked.

“He’s out getting us all some lunch. I bet you didn’t get a chance to eat, did you?”

“No.”

“Well, some tacos will do you good, then.”

“I’m gonna have to start making you lunches again,” Stiles muttered. A new flash of lightning made him shrink back in the chair.

“Here.”

Dad pressed something into Stiles’s hands. It was an mp3 player.

“It’s Shawn’s. Why don’t you see what kind of embarrassing music he’s got on there.”

The unspoken  _ to drown out the storm _ was received and Stiles eagerly put the headphones on. 

The first one in the queue was Cindy Lauper and Stiles was gonna give Shawn _ so much _ shit later but he turned up the music as loud as he could stand it. Dad didn't even reprimand him for damaging his eardrums though Stiles knew he could hear the lyrics from where he sat. As Cindy warbled on about girls wanting to have fun Stiles closed his eyes and hung on to the armrests and told himself everything was okay.

~

"Selina! Fancy meeting you here."

Shawn Hale knocked against Stiles's shoes as he entered the office later, laden down with greasy bags of tacos. Stiles shot him a glare. He would have flipped him off as well, but Dad was still in the room. Of all the things Stiles had figured Shawn would be, since he _ was _ a Hale, a merciless tease and super efficient annoyance had not been on Stiles's radar. Like at all. And it had started with the nickname.

Stiles, while a vigilante, had made exactly one catwoman joke to dispatch when he was calling in to report the criminals he had caught for them. One. He had been lonely and stressed and starved of normal human interaction that didn't involve stalking and apprehending criminals, or saying hi to Carlos, the cashier at the corner store. He had been lonely, okay?

Shawn had taken that and ran with it ever since their proper introduction shortly after Christmas and didn't call Stiles anything else, even at the station. It hadn't gone unnoticed and, when asked, Shawn didn't miss a beat. "You didn't hear? Poor kid, you know they had him on the good pain meds for a while in the hospital, right? Well, he started trying to dance the macarena while he was still hooked up to the IV at one point. It was a sight to see, let me tell you."

No one else on the force, save the sheriff, knew that Stiles had also been the vigilante known as the Shadow. And no one ever would since they were allowing the case to go cold since Stiles wasn't active anymore. But Shawn thought he was a real funny guy. And now the rest of the force thought Silles was a pathetic, adorable little stray. Stiles heard Deputy Diaz  _ cooing  _ after Shawn told her.

Stiles was going to destroy Shawn. He didn't know when or how, but he was a long term planner and it was going to be epic.

"Go eat dirt, Hale."

"Nah, these tacos are much more nutritional."

"I doubt it, they're from Mac's." Mac's had the best  tasting food in Beacon Hills if you were looking for something swimming in grease and full of forbidden calories, but the entire menu was an unapologetic recipe for a heart attack.

Stiles dug in anyway, the tacos were excellent, and eating did make him feel better. His heart stopped trying to squeeze out through his ribs and the storm had calmed into a steady rain with only the occasional flash and rumble. Stiles was exhausted, though. He felt like he had run ten miles through mud, or something.

Stiles didn't mean to fall asleep but he did halfway through his tacos. Someone took the rest before he dropped them and a jacket settled over him. Stiles didn't wake up until Dad shook his shoulder around five o'clock.

"C'mon, kiddo, let's get you home."

Mini-Stiles was over at Scotts and not due back for an hour, so Stiles worked on throwing together a quick noodle dish while Dad puttered around upstairs. When he came back down and dinner was cooking he tugged Stiles over to the table. "Can you tell me what happened earlier?"

Stiles sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was sticking up all over the place worse than a hedgehog.

"It was the storm. That's how the wild hunt arrived. The thunder was loud and sudden and then I was back there. I was trying to outrun them."

"You were out of sorts this morning, though," Dad prodded.

"Everything kept going wrong."

Dad kept prodding until Stiles told him the rest, starting with waking up and all the little annoyances that piled up and felt bigger than they were and Scott  _ wasn't there _ and--

It burst out of him in a flood.

Stiles wanted Scott, he wanted his friend, he wanted him to show up with his dopey smile and curb Stiles because he was spinning out and to tell him everything was going to be okay, because even when it wasn't Scott could make it feel like it was, if only for five minutes, because they could get through it and make it good again. But Stiles couldn't, not on his own, because Scott was  _ dead _ but he was still everywhere in that fucking school and it wasn’t fucking fair.

Stiles hadn’t been on his own in a long, long time. He didn’t know how to function without Scott. Not just as a friend but as a brother, a fellow fighter. Stiles came up with the plans but Scott was the one who helped refine them. Scott was shitty at coming up with the plans on his own but give him a framework and Scott built off the structure in a way that could get the job done and honor his code of ethics.

Stiles was half of a whole wandering around. An incomplete sequence. A damn skeleton bereft of a proper body. It wasn’t supposed to be just him.

"Oh, kiddo." Dad hugged him hard and Stiles held on hard enough to bruise.

"I'm sorry," Stiles whispered, miserable. "I'm trying."

Dad rubbed a hand up and down his back.

"I know you are but you have nothing to be sorry about. This is just a bad day, they're gonna happen. Remember what Dr. Sharon said? You were under immense stress and pressure for a long time and you had to keep it all inside. Now that the source is gone that pressure has to be released. It's your brain's way of dealing with what happened."

"I  _ do not like this _ ."

"I know, kiddo, I know. But you need to know that you’re not incomplete. You’re a whole person as you are and you are  _ not _ alone.”

Stiles appreciated the sentiment but Dad was wrong about that. Scott had balanced Stiles out in so many different ways, so many, in fact, that Stiles lost count. Where Stiles was motion Scott had been stillness. Where Stiles was ruthless Scott had been tempered. Yin and Yang. It hadn’t always been a perfect partnership but they’d been working towards it, maturing with all their mistakes and missteps, right until the end.

Maybe, if the supernatural bullshit had never happened, Stiles could have survived Scott’s loss better. But that wasn’t the world Stiles had come from. His world had forged them together with blood and fear and fangs. When it tore them apart it took large chunks of Stiles away in the process.

He’d been bleeding out long before the omega in the woods. He was bleeding out still and Stiles didn’t know how to stop it.

~

Derek and Laura came by just after dinner to drop off Stiles’s backpack. All evidence of Stiles’s second breakdown was gone and he was drained again and more than a little numb. He had gone upstairs as soon as he realized they were there, his heart up-ticking with shame, and he mumbled an excuse as he left. Dad had frowned as Mini-Stiles went to answer the door but didn’t stop Stiles.

If he tried, Stiles could hear the murmur of voices downstairs, his name seemed to be every other word. Dad made excuses for him but Derek and Laura knew Stiles was still awake. Stiles buried his head under his pillow and blocked everything out. His cheeks burned with the memory of how he'd been in the locker room. How Derek had treated him like some skittish horse one wrong move away from a full meltdown.

Stiles had been enjoying the tentative friendship they'd been building. Sometimes at lunch Stiles could forget he was screwed up six ways to hell. Sometimes he could forget to miss Scott for a moment, or that he waged constant war on his own brain to keep his shit together. 

But now Derek had seen an ugly side of Stiles's person. It was all well and cool that Stiles was a witch and had run around playing vigilante for a while and fought off a feral omega with nothing but some magic and a knife. Stiles could admit that on the surface those facts made him sound kind of badass. But this Derek had to witness the fallout, the other side of the coin. Stiles's Derek wouldn't have been a problem. Stiles's Derek would have understood because he had that same ugly side, too. The ugly pain that flowed beneath the decisions and actions. The ugly consequences and scars that came from surviving. The ugly damages that would never quite heal or fade.

This Derek, he didn't have ugly anything. Didn't understand ugly that way. And Stiles would have to face him at school later and deal under just how much Derek didn't understand. This Derek would probably blanch if Stiles popped off with some good old gallows humor about the incident. Or worse, look and treat Stiles like a fragile little bomb that could explode at any time.

Eventually he felt Derek and Laura pass back through the wards on their way out. It wasn’t long before Dad came up to check on him.

Stiles turned away from the door and pretended to be asleep.

Dad came in and hovered by the edge of the bed for a minute. Stiles kept his body relaxed and heavy. After a minute Dad sighed and pulled the covers up over Stiles's shoulders.

“You’re gonna be okay, kiddo. One day.”

Stiles wished those words didn’t hit him so hollow. 

  
  



	3. The Price of Ruination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined." Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this chapter ate my brain. General warnings for descriptions of anxiety. Also angst. Like so much angst.

Stiles has never felt like he was a good person. Even before the supernatural shitshow. The curse of self-awareness was realizing how much his ADHD affected everyone around him.  It started with Dad and ended with everyone who had ever told him his incessant babble was giving them a headache  . Stiles was exhausting. He  readily  admitted that because being in his own head was exhausting for him, too.

By the time the supernatural came on the scene, Stiles had dozens of coping methods, including medication  . But even with all that he was still a spaz, still exhausting to deal with. Still too ruthless, or mean-sarcastic, in a lot of ways to ever be good.  Then the supernatural shenanigans ramped up and Stiles’s extra time and energy went into research. Went into keeping everyone else alive and not dying himself.

Turns out the supernatural was the missing piece to getting Stiles on a more even keel. Once the Alpha pack hit the hits kept coming. Stiles didn’t slow down, he engaged with everything he had and it worked. 

Or he thought it had. Yes, he'd had no consistent sleep schedule. Or an acceptable meal schedule despite keeping his dad healthy. And, yeah, the panic and anxiety never went away but that was a given with everything that kept happening. But he'd managed to keep his grades up. Until the ghost riders, of course, but they erased him for three months.  Totally  out of his control.

He had managed to appear normal, though.  Mostly. Normal enough given his personality. No one outside those who knew what was going on noticed, and that had been the goal, anyway.

Back to the original point, though. Stiles knew he wasn’t a good person. But he'd had enough good people in his life that he could push his self-awareness away when it became too acute. He could do nice things when it mattered. Most of the time. Unless there was a greater good like survival on the line.

Or his own shame, apparently.

Which was why, when he slipped into school the next day, all his stealth charms  were activated  to avoid the stares and the whispers and, to be honest, _Derek._ Stiles could say his next set of actions were all down to how shitty of a person he could be without his  carefully  crafted net of moral compasses around him. Because he had to be a shitty person for breaking his promise to Dad.

It started at lunch. Stiles was hiding out from Derek in the library. He should have manned up and apologized for the shit show he'd been yesterday. Stiles could have done it, ripped the bandaid off, and _then_ hid in the library like the coward he was. But he skipped over the hard stuff and went straight to hiding. 

So he was in the history section pretending to read on Rome when his shady stuff radar pinged toward the poetry section.

At first glance, it didn’t look bad. Just a senior and a sophomore talking in the corner, an open book between them like they were discussing the contents. But the body language was off. They weren't really using the book but talking around it. The senior kept glancing around, eyes roaming, voice pitched low. Stiles knew that particular move well.

So Stiles, more than eager for a distraction, any distraction, angled himself to observe  .  He didn’t know either of the students but a vague flash of recognition hit when the senior, a boy in a ratty hoodie and skinny jeans, lifted his head a certain way.

The lightbulb turned on. Stiles had seen him around the raves where Marcus Delmonico, the drug dealer Stiles took down, liked to hang out and distribute his product  . Stiles had worked on taking down the rest of the ring until Dad and Shawn figured out his pattern.  After  eventually  getting caught due to the rogue omega who tried to gut him, Stiles had turned all his files and findings over to Dad. 

But Stiles didn’t forget faces. He was certain he hadn’t put a name to this particular face, though,  just  noted he was usually in Marcus’s vicinity.

That wasn’t conclusive in and of itself. Beacon Hills was small-town enough you ran into people by dint of limited options. Especially when it came to having fun as a teenager on a Friday night.

Something changed hands between the senior and the sophomore too quick for Stiles to identify. His radar switched from shady stuff to criminal.

The two students fist-bumped and the sophomore peeled away for the exit. The senior,  however, picked a few books at random and took them to the circulation desk to check out. Stiles was two steps behind him with his random history book.

The senior pulled his library card out of a pocket, sans wallet, and checked out. When he put the card back it was easy for Stiles to snag it back out without alerting him. Stiles slipped it up his sleeve and only looked at it when he left the library.

Nathan McClure. Stiles  vaguely  remembered the name from his own world. He was always among those getting called to see the principal. Stiles thought he got involved in some of the petty theft and vandalism for a while,  maybe  .  Maybe  he'd moved on to bigger, more profitable things here.

Stiles spent the rest of the day keeping an eye out for him.  During gym, Stiles left for about fifteen minutes under the pretense of getting more cleaning supplies and broke into the records room  .  Beacon Hills High hadn't switched over completely to digital records so getting the file, snapping some pictures, and getting back out was a breeze.

After school Stiles found Nathan getting into a beat-up Camry with a couple of other  vaguely  familiar seniors and juniors  . Stiles snapped their pictures and hoped they weren't blurry. He  really  missed his iPhone camera. And his computer. He would have to do this the old fashioned way at the public library, which sucked. 

"You've been avoiding me."

Stiles squeaked and flailed. Derek had snuck up right behind him and, oh, crap. He wasn't mad.  He looked hurt and guilty standing there, lip between his teeth, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

"Derek, hey. I-- Yeah, I was. Sorry."

Stiles shuffled  awkwardly  .  He had completely forgotten about his freak out and about avoiding Derek for the afternoon. Focused on Nathan, Stiles had actually felt...somewhat back to normal. His normal.

"I  just  wanted to say, you don't have to  be embarrassed  about yesterday. I hope I didn't overstep any bounds."

Stiles was the worst. The actual worst. Here Derek  was worried  that he had done something wrong and it had all been on Stiles's head anyway. 

"Dude, no. I'm not mad at you, I'm just... You shouldn't have had to see that. I should have kept it together better."

If anything, Derek's whole face crumpled even worse. Stiles hadn't known Derek's face could even make that expression. He had the insane urge to shush him and flap his hands like a panicked idiot. Which is what he did.

"Dude, dude, it's okay. I'm fine now. It was  just  a stupid flashback, it took me by surprise and I was being  overly  dramatic."

Which...was the wrong thing to say.  Okay, that expression was more on par with what Stiles  was used  to as the  weirdly  uncomfortable sadness gave way to confused anger.

He didn’t slam Stiles into a wall, though. Stiles wasn’t sure if he could label that a win or not.

"Stiles, I could feel and smell the anxiety coming off you. It wasn't nothing."

Stiles groaned. "Okay, fine. But I'm good now. I'm over it. And thank you for bringing my stuff over. I should have said that last night, I appreciated it."

"It was no trouble."

They descended into an awkward silence.  Stiles debated with himself for half a second before he blurted out, "Do you--do you want to help me with something this afternoon? I mean, are you busy?"

Derek blinked as he mentally shifted gears. "Nope, not busy. What are you doing?"

Stiles checked over his shoulder. Nathan and his ride exited the parking lot and went north. 

"How do you feel about some light recon?"

~

"So when you said light recon, I was expecting something more exciting."

Derek and Stiles huddled together behind a large pile of bushes at the end of Jefferson Street. Nathan and his crew had gone to a house that had seen better days but wasn't exactly condemned. Bass music thumped from inside and three or four junk cars took up the yard.

"Recon is rarely as exciting as the movies make it out to be. But this is light recon, I  just  need to clock some faces."

"Why?"

“Well, you know about when I was a vigilante?" Stiles paused to marvel that that sentence is something he  totally  got to say, which was _wild_. "One of my bigger projects was a local drug ring."

Stiles filled Derek in on the details starting with Marcus Delmonico and fanning out to his associates  . Stiles knew the drug ring was far wider than he'd managed to map out, they always were.  And the ring wasn't so much a single ring as it was a spiral with plenty of lower-level people making up the large outside layer.

"Shouldn't we be going to your dad with this?" Derek said.

"We will. Right now I  just  need to figure out who the potential players are so Dad has a good suspect pool to investigate."

"...I'm pretty sure that's part of his job."

"And I'm pretty sure I have the upper leg here since I can place faces alongside Delmonico's. Chill out. I'm not going to go beat them up or anything."

Even though Stiles  really  ,  really  wanted to.

There was a voice in the back of Stiles’s head sounding a warning. It warned him that he was slipping back into something that would be hard to shake. That he wasn’t supposed to involve himself in this sort of thing anymore.

He had given Dad his word, complete with a very serious handshake. And Dad had made it clear that Stiles  was supposed  to bring any illegal activity to him to deal with.  Just  hand it off, let it go, wash his hands of it as quick as possible. Go back to trying to be a normal teenager.

Another voice in his head argued that it would be better for Dad to have all the facts first. Facts that Stiles could collect without breaking  all of  the promise. He didn’t have to truss anyone up or fight with anyone or chase them down. He could  just  observe. Gather data. Put the picture together.

Make sure that this was a simple case, with no supernatural fringes or hidden heavy hitters.

The first voice warned him this was gonna go as well as it had when his Dad had discovered Stiles was hiding werewolves from him. Stiles figured he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and all that.

Stiles should have  been worried  that he was so excited about this. Since Dad had  basically  brought him in from the cold, Stiles had not felt excited. Grateful, yes. Loved, yes. He had even had some enjoyment here and there, so it wasn’t all bad, but there was an undercurrent of sick. Sick with grief, sick with anxiety, sick of himself, sick of feeling sick.

Stiles was sick of dealing with the monsters in his head. He wanted to get his hands on something real again. 

He would  just  have to make Dad understand later.

"Can you recognize any voices in there?" Stiles asked.

Derek obliged by listening. He shook his head. "The music distorts too much."

"All right, I'll need to take a closer look, then."

Derek snagged his arm. "What are you gonna do if they see you?"

Stiles flashed him a wide smile. "I'm a vigilante witch, dude. I got that part covered. You stay here and play lookout."

Stiles wiggled out of his grasp and activated his stealth spells. Derek  visibly  shook himself and squinted to hang onto Stiles's image. Stiles may have tweaked them a bit more since he used it last. They weren't perfect by any means, but definitely more powerful than when he ran from Dad by Sinema.

Stiles sprinted across the street and took cover around the junk cars. He worked his way across the yard and to the front windows. Two  were boarded  up but one was open. Stiles inched up until he could look inside. 

A TV blared Spongebob right next to the window and teenagers were strewn out in various positions on the furniture. Two were sharing cereal and three more passed a bong between them. The semi-see through curtain obscured their features, though. Still, he thought he recognized two others besides Nathan. They might have been at one of the raves together.

Stiles went around the side of the house to take a look at what he could see. The backyard had a high fence and big dogs from the sound of it. But there was a bedroom window within reach and, would you look at that, the latch was off and easy to slide up. Stiles shimmied inside and landed among dirty clothes all over the floor. He was in someone's bedroom.

Stiles snuck to the door and tipped it open. The loud music was coming from down the hall. Stiles slipped down it and glanced over the family pictures lining the wall. Then he came to the end and peeked around the corner into the living room.  That vantage point gave him a view of their faces through a large mirror angled to the side on the wall in front of Nathan.

Stiles made note of all their features, leaning out  just  a bit more to catch the last kid on the far couch. He thought their name was Landon, or  maybe  Logan. Nathan startled and almost dropped the bong.

"Did you see that?"

Nathan surged off the couch and came towards the hallway. Stiles sprinted for the back room.

"I thought I saw a face in the mirror," Nathan said.

"Whose, your own?" someone cackled.

"Nah, man, a person."

Crap. Crapcrapcrap. Stiles dove out of the window and pressed himself flat against the side of the house under it. A moment later Nathan's head poked out and looked up and down the length of the side. 

"Dude, you're tripping again," someone inside called.

Nathan muttered something and disappeared. The window closed with a firm click. Stiles held his breath and waited until he heard Nathan go back to the living room. Then he made his way back to Derek, careful to watch his back.

"Did you find out who they were?"

" Maybe. I got a look at their faces."

"Good. So we'll tell your Dad now?"

"No, not yet. Now is time for some digging. Pretty sure they all go to school with us so if we can spot them we can put some names to the faces."

"So, more recon?"

Stiles shrugged. "You up for it?"

Derek squinted at the house for a moment then bobbed his head. "Yeah. Shouldn't be that hard, right?"

It turned out to be  moderately  hard. Nathan ran with a crowd of slackers and not  all of  them showed up at school on a given day.  School recon turned into afternoon haunts around Nathan's house, two other residences, the arcade, and two of the parks.

Stiles was wary about getting too close again. He had never considered how a mirror might break up his spell, or render it useless.  Stiles was pretty sure Nathan hadn't gotten a clear look at him but he made himself scarce and kept his distance at school. Once or twice he caught Nathan staring at him in the hall but it wasn't quite recognition. Stiles crossed his fingers that Nathan would chalk it up to the weed and forgot about it.

But then it came to an end. Stiles bit back the sadness when he finished laying the pieces together in a file folder. He and Derek had made a good team.

Derek had come around and enjoyed their stakeouts after the first one. He was able to put his nose and ears to good use, which freed Stiles from having to get up close and persona. Especially since most of their recon took place during the day and evenings. Derek texted him pictures and notes for their proof folder throughout the day. Stiles had to suppress a  stupidly  happy grin every time his phone buzzed. 

_Yr like a real detective now_ , Stiles texted him.

_Just call me Sherlock._

_No way, I'm not Watson._

_How about Mulder?_

Stiles got kicked out of History when he couldn't stop laughing.

"I'll tell him on Saturday," Stiles said two weeks later. He had to admit that they'd gathered more than enough information for Dad. Stiles  just  didn't want it to end. 

They made such a good team, even here. Derek, once Stiles schooled him on what to look for, dug in with gusto. He also had a way of talking Stiles around to make sure he was thinking things through. Like with the arcade. Stiles had wanted to check out their cars. Not like he didn't know how to jimmy a lock but Derek had said it was too risky. Later they saw a security camera they'd missed  initially.

"Cool," Derek said, as reluctant as Stiles felt. "Want me to be there?"

"You did do half the work," Stiles said. "But he might be a little mad so I can take the fall if you don't want to get in trouble."

That was another thing they had discussed.  Dad had wanted to  be informed  first if Stiles ever came across anything and Stiles had broken that part of his promise  . But he hadn't engaged with any of the targets. The information-gathering was tame considering the methods Stiles had used in the past.  And he was turning everything over to Dad,  just  more organized and  metaphorically  gift wrapped than it could have been two weeks before.

Yeah, Dad was going to  be pissed .

"I decided to come along, Stiles. I made my own choice, if I get in trouble for it then so be it."

Stiles held up his hands in surrender. " Just  putting the offer out there."

"No need. This was actually  really  fun, I'm glad we did it. I didn't realize how much of that went on here. Kinda scary."

Stiles  absolutely  did not find that sentiment adorable and also very sad. He chose to ignore it as they walked over to the basketball court. It was almost like old times but without all the screaming, the blood, and the death.

They were almost to the court when a sheriff's cruiser pulled up alongside them.

"Come on guys, get in," Shawn said, bereft of his normal annoying cheer.

Stiles's insides went cold.

"Is Dad okay? Did something happen to Mini-Stiles?"

"Everyone is fine, but you two need to come with now right now."

Shawn wouldn't explain anything on the ride. Stiles's heart rate sped faster and faster until Derek poked his side and made a concerned face. Stiles ended up chewing on his thumbnail.  By the time he realized Shawn wasn't taking them to the station, but to Stiles's home, he was apprehensive for a completely different reason.

Shawn led them into the house and Dad was there, his shoulders and back rigid. Spread out on the coffee table was the evidence folder Stiles and Derek had worked on. All their notes and photos and observations.

"Dad, I--"

"You gave me your word, Stiles."

Stiles flinched back. Dad, eyes closed, lips pursed, struggled to keep from shouting.

"You promised me you wouldn't do this anymore."

"I promised I wouldn't do it alone, and that I would come to you. I wasn't alone, and I was going to give you everything tomorrow when you were off." 

That did nothing to appease him.

"You've been working this for weeks, Stiles, I can see the timestamps. Why didn't you come to me before this? Or, better yet, the day of?"

Derek stepped forward. "Sir--"

Dad held up a finger and cut Derek off. "You'll get your turn. Stiles?"

"Because I..."

Stiles stopped. He had four different,  perfectly  plausible lies on the tip of his tongue.  Maybe  Dad would buy them,  maybe  he wouldn't. But if he started telling them, Stiles wouldn't stop.

"I'm waiting."

Stiles crossed his arms and stared down at the scattered file. 

"Because I needed it."

The words, once loosed, were no more than a whisper but everyone heard them.

"You needed what? To sneak around? To be the Shadow again?"

The disappointment was worse than the anger.  Stiles's stomach squirmed as one of those not-so-helpful voices in his head whispered, _told you so_ .

"I needed to feel like I was doing my job."

"This," Dad picked up a handful of pictures and shook them at Stiles. "This is not your job. This is mine and it's not a game to go around gathering evidence and taking pictures and playing cop--"

"I know it's not a game." Stiles's voice was still soft. He made himself meet his Dad's gaze and gestured at the table. "None of this ever is.”

“Yeah? Well, you could have fooled me. Because this is the kind of stunt an amateur pulls. This is what gets people hurt and killed or thrown in prison because they decide the laws don’t apply to them!”

Dad’s voice rose with each word until his voice filled the living room. 

“I had to make sure you had accurate information before I sent you anywhere that could be dangerous--”

“Again, that isn’t your job, Stiles!”

“Then what is?” Stiles bellowed.  That dangerous edge of manic anxiety spilled over into anger and rose up before Stiles could even think . “What is my job? What am I supposed to do? I’m not a child and this isn’t my first case. I knew I could handle the legwork before I handed it over to you--"

"You are not the adult here. I am. I'm the dad, you're the son. It's my place to protect you, not the other way around."

"I can't live with that! Not-not again." Stiles's breath came in short gasps but he refused to sink into a panic attack. He had to hold out,  just  for a while.

Dad closed his eyes and sighed.

"You're not there anymore, Stiles." 

"I will always be there!" The words ripped out of Stiles like a stubborn tooth. And it was impossible to stop what came after. "No matter how much therapy, no matter if I graduate and go to college, I will always be this. I can't turn it off or bury it. I watched him die because of me. I will never send you into anything that I don't vet a hundred percent ever again."

Stiles paused, shaking, and realized Shawn and Derek were still there. All eyes were on him. His were only on Dad who  was shocked  into silence. Dad tried to move forward but Stiles backed away.

"I wish I could-- I wish I could get better and be what you want me to be. I wish that sneaking around and being in danger and going after threats didn't make me feel as relieved as it does. I know it's fucked up.”

Stiles kept backing up until he hit Shawn, who steadied him. Stiles shrank from his hands, though. No one should be touching him, not soft or in worry or with concern. Stiles couldn’t even look at Derek. He should have-- Stiles should have done this alone last night. Instead, he'd been stupid and hung onto that feeling of normalcy the case had given him. He'd been so damn greedy.

“But that was my job. Then I failed at it. And now I don't have a job at all. I don't have a role.  I don't have any purpose and if I don’t have that then all I am is-is this worthless pile of trauma and no good to anyone, least of all you--"

“Stiles, you-- You’re not worthless because you’re traumatized.” Dad was crying. He was trying not to but he was anyway and Stiles was the absolute worst thing on the planet. “You don’t have to be useful to me to exist here. That’s not why I brought you home. That’s not why I want you here.”

Dad approached him slow, hands out like he was talking down a tripping suspect. Like any wrong move would startle Stiles into doing something. Dad was going to hug him.  Was going to touch him like Stiles was something fragile, something breakable as if Stiles hadn’t broken long ago. Stiles was nothing but jagged and sharp edges now. All he was good for was cutting and making those around him bleed.

A nasty voice that sounded so much like the nogitsune hissed that Stiles was going to drive this Dad right into the ground  just  like his old one, wouldn’t that be fun  ?  Another voice urged Stiles to make a million promises in blood sweat and tears to do what Dad wanted, anything to make him stop looking like that.

It was too much. Something in Stiles’s brain checked out. His body sidestepped away from Dad and Shawn and Derek. He headed for the stairs and up to his room. Closed the door. Went out the window, up, onto the roof.  Then, hands buried  painfully  in his hair, he surrendered to the vile, cloying, accusations in his head.

Stiles made his own hell. He shouldn’t have  been surprised  when it all came back to burn him down.

~

“He’s okay.” Derek tilted his head to the side, listening. “He went up to the roof. He’s  just  sitting there.”

John sank into the couch. “Well, I could have handled that better.”

Shawn clasped his shoulder before turning to his younger brother.

“ I think  it’s time you gave us your explanation, Derek.”

Derek sighed. “He asked me to help him. I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to.”

“And you didn’t come to me why?”

Derek lifted his chin, somehow managing to look half stubborn and half apologetic.

“Because he asked me for help,” he repeated, a bit slower, as if Shawn failed to hear. “Stiles doesn’t ask for anything. He’s always wild and squirley, always reeks of depression and anxiety, but he won’t ask for help. He didn’t like that I “had to deal” with him when he had that episode.”

Derek rolled his eyes and let out a sharp huff. John’s heart squeezed  painfully  in his chest.

“But after avoiding me all day at school the next day I finally found him and he... He  was focused  . Awake. Like he’d found something to hold onto and he asked if I would help him.  I should have told you once I found out what he wanted, but when we found the first house and he was going to go take a look, he smiled .” Derek looked between the two adults, his eyes willing them to understand. “Stiles doesn’t smile. Not like that. It was the first time since knowing him that he wasn’t soaked in grief.”

Derek bit his lip and shook his head.

“I figured that if I helped then I could make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. And he didn’t. If I told him we needed to back off or do something different he listened. He didn’t fight anyone, he  just  gathered information and we pooled it together. And he wasn’t lying about telling you, sir. We had everything we needed so I was going to come over tomorrow and he was going to give everything to you.”

Shawn looked like he wanted to bang his head on a wall. “Derek, you still should have told us. You know better.”

“Stiles trusted me with this, Shawn. Trust means a lot to him and I don't need to be a wolf to have figured that out.”

Shawn raised his eyebrow. “You think that explanation is going to work on mom?”

Derek jutted his chin out but said nothing.

Part of John  was warmed  to his core that Stiles had not only made a friend but also won something akin to undying loyalty from him.  The other part  was torn  over wringing both of their foolish necks and despairing that John was way in over his head. He’d known from the get-go that Stiles needed an immense amount of care and help. But it was one thing to know that and another to figure out what it meant and a third to execute it.

John had Stiles going to therapy sessions every Friday. He made time to spend with both the boys several nights a week and kept in touch with them when he couldn’t be there. That wasn’t enough, though. Tonight made that  painfully  obvious.

John rubbed at his temples. His gut was telling him he needed to get to the root of Stiles’s issues soon and help the boy untangle them.  Stiles was not capable of doing that alone and John’s other world counterpart was a major source of those issues  . More than Stiles had  revealed  so far. The sheer terror lurking under his words made John want to vomit.

This wasn’t going to get solved in the bouts of time between work and school. This needed something immediate, something deep and committed.

Mind made up, John rose from the couch and snagged his cell phone from the table. He called Talia Hale’s number.

Later, after plans  were made  and goals discussed, Shawn left the Stilinski house with Derek and the case file. Stiles was still up on the roof so John called Melissa.

“Hey.” She answered on the second ring even though it was well past midnight. “How did it go?”

“It went.”

“Ouch, that bad?”

“It definitely could have been better.” John gave her a rundown of the evening. He eyed the cabinet his whiskey was in but decided against it. There would be a time for that, but not tonight.  Probably  not anytime soon.

“Damn, John.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I have an idea. Would it be okay if Mini-Stiles stayed with you for next week? Laura offered to babysit there.”

“Yeah, that would be fine. What are you going to do?”

“Stiles has a bad habit of dancing around the heart of everything unless he’s cornered. If we keep on as we are it’s going to get worse. It’s not completely his fault. It sounds like this is a survival and a coping technique he’s had to use for a long time, but it’s going to hurt him in the long run. I need to get him somewhere with no distractions, somewhere he can’t hide.  Maybe  if we can expose all the roots I can get him to trust me.”

“You think he doesn’t trust you?”

Trust and love were two separate things. John had loved and trusted Claudia up until the disease made her lash out at Stiles. He had loved her still but trust had dissolved as quick as snow in July. John had also loved his father, even though he’d been an abusive bastard, but never trusted him an inch.

Stiles loved John  fiercely  , that was never in question.  The kid had warded the house for the apocalypse and taken on the criminal underbelly of Beacon Hills to make it safe for John and Mini-Stiles, for Pete's sake  . But Stiles didn’t trust John on some level.  Whether that stemmed from when the supernatural intruded on their lives in his old world or sometimes before John didn’t know .

“ I think  he’s got himself so lost in pain and grief that he doesn’t remember how to trust that I’m going to be here for him.  I think  he can’t let himself because of what happened to his father. I have to tackle that head-on now or…”

Or Stiles would contort and destroy himself to become what he thought John wanted him to be while spiraling into madness against habits that urged him to do the exact opposite . John had to find some way of bringing Stiles back to the middle. Of getting that kid some balance and making him see that he had support whenever he needed it.

“I’m going to take him out of town for the week.  Just  him and me. I have to give this my full attention if I have any hope of fixing this.”

“You do what you need to, but you should  probably  talk to your little one before you go. He’s been trying to listen in for the past five minutes and I know he’s biting his nails again.”

John let out a wet chuckle.

“Go ahead and put him on. And Mel? You’re a bonafide angel, I hope you know that.”

“Oh, I’m aware, Stilinski,” she said, fond.

There was a muffled noise as Melissa called Mini-Stiles over and handed him the phone.

“Dad? Is everything okay now?” 

John could picture him, the cordless phone pressed to his ear, hope and fear running rampant through his head like a dog chasing a rabbit .

“Not yet, kiddo.”

The line was silent for a moment.

“Are taking him to jail?”

“Oh, no, Stiles. I’m not doing that, okay? I confronted him about the case file you found--”

“You didn’t tell him it was me, right?” Mini-Stiles squeaked, panicked.

“No, I didn't tell him. But he said some things that have me  really  worried about him. So I’m going to take him out of town in the morning. We’re going to be gone for about a week and I’m gonna get to the bottom of things, one on one.”

“Oh, god, you’re doing a lonely cabin intervention. This is bad.”

John rolled his eyes. “Stiles, don’t make this sound like a damn slasher movie, please.”

“That’s what it is, though, right? You did that for your brother.”

John winced. He had no idea when Stiles had overheard that particular story but he wasn’t surprised.

“This is different than what I did for Gary, but the concept is similar. Will you be okay staying with Melissa and Scott while I try to help him?”

Mini-Stiles huffed.

“I’ll be fine. But why can’t I come? I could help you.”

John wiped at his eyes. It wasn’t hard to see the seeds of what older Stiles had become in Mini-Stiles.  Mini-Stiles,  however  , hadn’t lost that crucial bit of childhood innocence that kept John  squarely  in the parent role. John would fight tooth and nail to make sure he didn’t follow his older counterpart’s footsteps in that regard.

“This is gonna be painful for him, Stiles.  Emotionally  and mentally. He won’t want witnesses for it. But I will definitely need your help when we come back. I’m not sure what it will look like, yet, but you’ve got a special brand of care that might be exactly what he’ll need.”

“Cheesy eggs and video games?”

“For a start, kiddo. We’ll make a game plan when we get back, okay?”

“Okay. Do you think you’ll be able to help him get better?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

“I’m going to do everything I can to get him there.”

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you… Would you ever do a lonely cabin intervention for me?”

John cast his eyes up to the ceiling to ward off another wave of tears.

“I hope I never have to do that for you, kiddo. But we can plan something fun after we get back, okay? Something for  just  you and me.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, trying not to let on how happy he was. “I love you, Dad. You can do it.”

“Thank you. I love you, too.”

John went upstairs after and peeked into Stiles’s room. He had come back in from the roof and lay curled in bed under the covers so tight he might have been an armadillo. John went in and pulled the covers up over Stiles’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his head. 

“I love you, kiddo.”

Stiles’s breathing hitched but otherwise didn’t react. That was fine. John was under no illusions that he was asleep but he let Stiles pretend. It was the last time John would let him do so.

After tonight John was going to shine a light so bright there would be no shadows left for Stiles to hide inside.

It was going to be painful. It would get ugly before it was over. Probably not as ugly as it had with Gary, but Stiles would hate John more than a little before they were done.  John wasn’t just going to poke at his sore spots, he was going to reopen wounds and reset bones, metaphorically speaking.

And  maybe,  hopefully, bring his son some measure of peace.


	4. Hopeful Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go and surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I've mentioned how much I love writing John, right? Well, add about seventy billion more feels behind my original statement. This piece is pretty much pure indulgent John love and appreciation to the max. I don't even feel bad.

Sneakiness was an inherent Stilinski trait passed down through many, many generations; it hadn’t come to Stiles from thin air. The next morning John woke Stiles at five and hustled him through his usual morning routine. The kid was exhausted, bruises under his eyes, gaze bleary, and miserable. Stiles stumbled through his shower and a quick breakfast without noticing the bags John had packed, that John wasn’t in uniform, or the fact that the coffee sitting out for him was decaf.

Stilinski’s could be ruthless bastards when they needed to be, too.

“Where’s Mini-Me?” Stiles asked when they got in the cruiser. He kept rubbing at his eyes in an effort to keep them open.

“He stayed the night with Scott, Melissa’s taking them to school.”

“Oh.”

Stiles fought hard to stay awake but he was out like a light before they hit Main Street. John turned the heat up to keep the cab toasty. Stiles always slept better when he was warm.

Normally John had the radio on to catch up on the news but he kept it off and it was a nice change to be in the stillness of the cab. The faint sounds outside the car drifted by. The heater rattled. Stiles snored and mumbled.

Beacon Hills faded away in the rearview mirror and then it was just the darkened road surrounded by the towering pine trees of the preserve and the headlights cutting through the shadows. John found the logging road about forty minutes into the drive. Talia had assured him the road was passable for the cruiser and that no one would bother them where they were going.

The logging road wound like a snake towards the heart of the preserve. Branches arched above, hiding the sky from view as well as if they had entered a tunnel. An hour later John took a left down a worn path that split from the road and eventually opened into a large clearing. A cabin stood in the middle of it, clean and kept up, just as Talia had promised.

The pack had places like this tucked away all over the preserve. Mainly they were used for getaways or training new werewolves. She had been kind enough to have someone stock the cabin with food and essentials to last them the week and arranged for a patrol to keep an eye on them at a distance. Nothing would get to them, John could have peace of mind and focus completely on Stiles. 

It all felt like a little much. John had only expected some advice and maybe a cheap getaway recommendation. Talia had scoffed at that. "Pack takes care of their own, John."

John wasn't sure when that definition began to include him or his kids but he didn't question it then. There would be plenty of time to find out later and get a rundown of what that, exactly, meant for the Stilinski clan.

“You’re making a good decision,” Talia had told him at the end of their conversation. “When we have a newly turned beta it can be a fight to get them to recognize me as their alpha, especially when they’ve been turned through trauma. I have to prove to them I am what I say, that I follow through on my own promises before I can expect the same from them. This will be good for both of you.”

John knew he had a good shot at getting through to Stiles if he acted quick, decisively, and didn’t back down. Giving him a chance to process what John planned to do would only allow him time to mount defenses and scramble for loopholes and gaps. It was ironic that John’s best weapon to restore Stiles’s balance was to keep him off-kilter, but Stiles was contrary right down to the bone.

Most Stilinski’s were. At least he came by it honestly.

John turned the cruiser off and shook Stiles’s shoulder.

“Up and at ‘em, kiddo. We’re here.”

Stiles flailed awake with a snort. Then scrambled out after John.

“Where’s the school?” Stiles, wide-eyed, turned around in a circle and rubbed at his eyes as if their surroundings might melt away and morph into something recognizable. 

“No school for you this week. Help me with these bags.”

John tossed Stiles’s backpack to him. He had divested it of Stiles’s homework and school supplies in favor of clothes. Derek would be gathering Stiles’s homework for him throughout the week. Stiles was a smart kid, he could make it up when this was over.

“What? Um, why? Why no school? Dad, what’s going on?”

John closed the trunk and didn’t answer as he strode for the cabin. Stiles stumbled to grab his bag and catch up.

“Dad, please, what’s going on?”

The cabin door swung open, unlocked, and John flicked the light on. Huh. It was a pretty cozy place, more of an updated hunting cabin than a vacation cabin. It was all a single room. Two twin beds were in the back opposite the kitchen area and a cast-iron stove. A single table took up the wall next to the cabinets and counter with two chairs tucked in. A couch had been squeezed into space on the wall opposite along with a coffee table. Out back, John expected to find the well house that pumped up fresh water from one of the many streams running through the preserve and, a bit farther away, an old fashioned outhouse.

This would do nicely.

“Dad? Please, you’re scaring me, what’s going on?”

“Go sit down.”

“Is this-- seriously, what’s happening here? Where are we? I--”

“Stiles.” John waited until he stopped babbling and met his eyes. “Sit. Down.”

John didn’t yell, but he put the kind of force behind his words he normally reserved for belligerent suspects. It had the desired effect. Stiles’s eyes bugged and he planted his ass on the couch, mouth closed, backpack clutched like a lifeline.

John ignored Stiles in favor of stowing his pack and swapping his shoes out for runners and strapping on a smaller pack with some water and snacks in it. He gestured for Stiles to follow him and went back outside.

The trail was just to the left of the cabin. According to Talia, it was a good jogging trail that wound back and forth for five miles and ended at a nice lake good for fishing and swimming. Though they wouldn’t be doing any swimming now. March was still too cold to go diving into a lake.

“Do your stretches, kiddo, don’t need to pull something out here.”

John led by example, ignoring Stiles’s mixed fury, fear, and bafflement. Stiles didn’t ask again, but he kept shooting furtive glances at John like he might start stroking out at any moment. John shook out his stiffness and nerves.

“Okay, try to keep up.”

And John took the lead.

Stiles sputtered behind him. Two seconds later he caught up, mouth opening and closing. John would have laughed if the situation were at all funny. Stiles eventually huffed and settled into a perturbed silence broken only by their breathing. He kept pace with John, both of them settling into an easy jog.

By about the mile mark Stiles was lagging. At one and a half, he was struggling. John called a rest and Stiles leaned against a tree to catch his breath.

“Can you tell me what’s going on now?” Stiles rubbed at his chest.

“We’re jogging.”

“Jogging, great. Super obvious, I should have picked up on that. I mean besides the jogging.”

“Right now we’re just jogging.”

He gave Stiles a small grin and started off again. Stiles groaned and said a few choice words under his breath before he caught up again.

It went like that for the next few miles. Stiles was not used to exerting himself this way and had a hard time with the incline. John made a mental note to fit in some sort of gym time with Stiles when they got back from this trip, especially since he wasn't getting any at school. Maybe make it part of their family time a couple of nights a week.

By the time they reached the lake John had worked up a decent sweat and Stiles was drenched and winded. 

“Oh, wow,” Stiles said when he caught his breath and took a moment to look around.

The lake was more impressive than John had imagined. It stretched on and disappeared behind a bend some half-mile away. Trees sprawled right down to the shore for the most part but there was a grassy expanse on one side that would make a perfect fishing spot. There was no evidence of previous human activity, though. No trash or fire pits or unnatural additions. It felt like a hidden gem they were the first to discover.

John waved Stiles over to a fallen log. “Come here and sit.”

Stiles did, warily, and John handed him a bottled water. Birds chirped overhead and the wind rustled through the trees, heedless of the rising tension.

“Did you ever meet your Uncle Gary in your world?”

Stiles wasn’t expecting that question. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. Dad didn’t-- He only mentioned him a couple times, it was never good.”

“Well, I haven’t been close to my brother since we were children. Gary is a few years older than me and he tended to take after our Dad in temperament.”

Stiles made a confused noise. John pulled his t-shirt down to reveal the twisted lump of scarred flesh on his chest. Stiles dropped his water bottle.

“My dad was a mean son of a bitch. Didn’t matter if he was drunk or sober. He took out a lot of his rage on me and Gary. Gary handled it by staying away and getting drunk and high, by fighting anyone who looked at him in a way he didn’t like. Even me. This came from the time Gary pushed me into a glass table.”

John let his shirt fall back. 

“So that’s why you don’t talk to him?”

“No, not because of that. That happened when I was nine. Gary was thirteen. I still loved and looked up to him well into my early twenties. Even though he had a lot of Dad in him he had Mom in there, too. He could be decent when he wasn’t lost in everything that had happened to us. The trouble was he couldn’t find his way out. He still can’t.”

John hadn’t spoken about any of this in years. Since he and Claudia had been engaged. Since he had exploded about the issue of children, certain he should never have any for fear he'd turn into some Frankenstein mixture of his old man and his big brother. Claudia, bless her, saw that panic for what it really was and helped him work through it. It still tried to frighten John sometimes. Like a vengeful ghost rising from its grave or a boogeyman lurking in a closet. The trick was to keep facing it down, time after time, and returning them to their prisons.

“I took him somewhere a lot like this when he was twenty-five. He had wrapped his truck around a telephone pole and shouldn’t have walked away from it, but by some miracle he did. I wanted to get him sober, help him get on the right path. I’d been on the force about two years by that point. I didn’t want to see him in jail like so many addicts end up. I didn’t want to see him dead, either.”

John threaded his fingers together and sighed.

“Gary didn’t want help. And he didn’t want to face his problems or work through them. He ended up breaking my arm in three places that weekend.”

Stiles sucked in a horrified breath. “Dad…”

John held up a hand. Stiles swallowed anything else he was going to say.

“Gary made his decision and I made my own that night. He’s never tried to contact me again and I haven’t gone looking for him.”

Stiles ducked his head to process that. It was a lot to take in. John hadn’t gone down the road Gary had, but he’d had his own struggles coming to terms with everything over the years. None of them had been pretty or pleasant. It was difficult to lay them bare before his son. He’d always known he’d have to eventually for Mini-Stiles. He was bound to get curious at some point and he deserved to know.

This Stiles needed to know for completely different reasons. 

“I’m not-- Dad, I wouldn’t do that to you or Mini-Me. I swear.” A sharp, unspoken  _ please believe me _ ran through Stiles’s voice.

John squeezed his shoulder. “No, you won’t. Because you are not going to get to that point. Now or ever.” John nudged Stiles to stand up. “Come on, time to head back.”

“But we just got here.”

John gave him a look and began jogging down the trail.

Stiles was out of temper by the time they arrived back at the cabin. His complaints got worse when he found out there was no hot shower.

“Are we supposed to just stink up the place all week and not die of our own fumes?”

“Hot showers are a relatively new invention, Stiles. Washing up with a bucket of cold water and some soap won’t kill you.”

John wasn’t thrilled with the development either but he chose to think of it like camping. Besides, it was only a week. They would both live. Stiles grumbled and grouched and washed up in the well-house. John took his turn after. When he came out, hair dripping wet and certainly more invigorated, he found Stiles tearing his backpack apart.

“Where is my phone?”

“At home, same as mine.”

Stiles’s eye twitched.

“What if we have an emergency?”

“I’ll handle it.”

“But--”

“What did I just say?”

Stiles snapped his mouth shut. John hung his towel up and gestured to Stiles.

“Come on, let’s make some lunch.”

Stiles heaved himself up off the couch. “I’m surprised you’re not making us go hunt something down,” he grouched.

“Well, if you insist--”

“That was a rhetorical statement!”

They made a lunch of sandwiches and chips in relative silence. Stiles was shooting him looks every now and then, the gears turning in his mind, trying to figure things out. John let him until they’d finished and washed up dishes. Then he brought out a couple of notebooks and dropped one in front of Stiles at the table. 

“I’m guessing this isn’t homework.”

“Nope.” John slid a pen over to him. “You’re going list out everything you think should be part of your job as a member of this family. Everything, from the smallest thing to the biggest. Everything you feel is your responsibility. Then you’re going to list out everything you think is my job. I’m going to do the same. Then we’re going to talk about them.”

Stiles swallowed and looked vaguely ill at the thought.

“Dad, everything I said last night, I… I’m sorry.”

“I’m not looking for an apology, Stiles.” He tapped the notebook. “Two lists. Get to work on them.”

John took his notebook and began writing his own. Stiles sat there for a few minutes, pen loose in his fingers, watching John. When John didn’t acknowledge it he sat up and hesitantly began.

John was done long before Stiles. Stiles didn’t notice for a while, focused on the task, head down. John took that moment to really look at him. Stiles had filled out slowly since John brought him home. His face was no longer as sharp and angular, the shoulders of his shirt weren’t so loose around him. Physically, he still had a ways to go before John would be satisfied but the improvement that was there put him at ease.

That had been John’s mistake. And Stiles had capitalized on it, subconscious or not. Had they not gone head to head last night John might have gone on thinking Stiles was coming along mentally as well. But taking in everything Stiles had said last night had been far more revealing than Stiles probably intended. 

John didn’t want to use the word broken to describe Stiles. Broken implied the inability to heal or repair. But Stiles was damaged, extensively. John had to remember that and, while celebrating any future progress, watch for signs that said progress wasn’t as deep or complete as it appeared. 

Stiles put his pen down and blinked as if coming out of a haze. He glanced up at John and then away.

“Finished?”

He nodded. 

“What’s the first difference you see between the two lists?”

Stiles scratched at his hand and kept his eyes on the paper.

“One side is longer than the other.”

John didn’t bother asking whose side that was. “Do you think that’s fair?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think that’s a fair balance of responsibility between you and me?”

Stiles chewed on his lip. Shook his head.

“Why?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and looked away. He crossed his arms and jiggled his knee under the table. 

“Why isn’t it fair?” John pressed. 

“Because one is longer than the other.”

“Yes. What’s another reason?”

When Mini-Stiles was seven he went through a phase where he refused to take off his pair of lucky socks. No amount of cajoling or ranting about the stink would sway him and he’d always been a fast and slippery bugger. In the end, John had given an ultimatum: either Stiles put the socks in the washer himself or lose all Scott privileges until he did. 

Stiles had John’s stubborn streak, but John had lived with it longer. It only took two days for Stiles to cave.

This Stiles probably had a similar story in his background. He squirmed and huffed just like Mini-Stiles had over those socks, getting ready to deflect until he dug his heels in. John was still older. He would keep them both at this table all damn week if need be.

“Because some of them aren’t--weren’t discussed.”

“What’s another reason?”

“What do you want me to say?” Stiles exploded. “Okay, yes, it’s uneven. Maybe some of them technically shouldn’t be my jobs but I want them to be! Someone needed to be doing them and--”

“Why are they unfair?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be avoiding it so hard.”

“Why can’t you just let me have this?” he asked as if John was demanding he give up a beloved hobby.

“You need to speak what you know is true out loud. Why are they unfair?”

Stiles ran a hand through his hair, hands jittery to do something, anything.

“Because--because… Because I’m just the kid and you’re the dad. Because no one else was going to do them. Because I can’t lose you again and I will if I don’t watch out for you.”

“You watched out for your Dad plenty and he still died.”

John may as well have slapped him. Stiles lost all color in his face. It was horribly reminiscent of when he'd been bleeding out and John went and pressed his metaphorical thumb down on the wound he'd just reopened.

“You watched what he ate. You took over the house and the cooking and everything your mom had done. You pretended everything was fine with you even when it wasn’t. How was that fair?”

Stiles’s face crumpled.

“It wasn’t,” John continued. “To either of you. You didn’t get to be a kid in the ways you deserved to be and he wasn’t a dad in the ways you needed.”

Stiles was on his feet in a blink.

“My dad was a great dad in all the ways that mattered, don’t say that about him!”

John rose to his feet, eye to eye with Stiles who trembled with barely contained fury. John pressed harder, dug into the muscle, and through the nerves.

“Yeah? Then why didn’t he help you when it was clear you were taking on responsibilities that weren’t yours to begin with? Did he think a fairy godmother came in and took care of all the domestic chores? Did he shrug and say _oh well_ when he realized you were lying about where you were at night? Or when you came home beat up? I gotta say, that's a pretty shitty way to raise a child--"

Stiles pushed into his space but John stood his ground.

“He had too much on his plate to take care of everything! He was the sheriff and the supernatural kept fucking everything up before he knew about it--”

“Which you kept from him.”

“To protect him!”

“And who was protecting you?” 

“I was fine.”

"Sure, you got beat up by a hunter on his watch, nearly eaten or maimed or turned a dozen times or so, almost drowned, possessed by a dark fox spirit, et cetera. I suppose he was just fine with you off risking life and limb so he could stay home and laze around in front of the TV--"

Stiles pushed at him but John was ready for it. He caught Stiles's arm and spun him around, pinning him to John's chest in a bear hug. Stiles struggled against him. He could have used magic, could have kicked and flailed, and used what training he had to try and get out of it. But he stopped and froze.

"The last time I held you like this you were bleeding to death in my arms. Do you remember that? I had you in the back of the cruiser and held you together for eight minutes that felt like an eternity. I think about those eight minutes every day. I also think about what might have happened if you hadn't made it to the hospital. Or if I hadn't caught you at the school. Devastation is too nice of a word for what I would have felt if I'd lost you, or if I'd had to find your body. Even before I knew you were my son."

John let him go and turned him back around. Stiles looked as wrecked as John felt but he was down to the bone now. He couldn't afford to stop short so he doubled down.

“Take your shirt off.” 

“What? No!”

Stiles clenched his fists and shrank in on himself a bit.

“That’s what I thought. You can’t stand here and tell me to my face that you were fine. I have a stack of photographs and x-rays that call bullshit. You put your life and wellbeing on the line and lied to him about it. Every time you took the chance of making him feel what I felt in those eight minutes. You _risked_ making him find your corpse and then go through the agony of burying you next to your mother."

Tears spilled down Stiles's face. John resisted the urge to gather him up just yet even though his heart screamed under his ribs.

"You took on the responsibility for protecting his peace of mind and denied him his responsibility to care for you. You denied him the _right_ to protect you until it was almost too late. That wasn’t fair.”

The air in the cabin was so charged John half expected it to explode. Without glancing away John slid the notebook over to Stiles. He tapped his finger on the lists.

"Look at me now and try to convince me that any of these burdens you shouldered, that you denied your father, that you kept piling on yourself until it was crushing both of you, did anything to really protect him. Tell me now they were in any way fair."

Stiles sank back into his chair like a puppet whose strings were cut. He made a small, wounded noise in the back of his throat. 

John eased back into his own chair, a rush of weariness swept through him. He finally had a foothold into Stiles’s head. He finally had his eyes open. It didn't feel like a victory yet.

“Why didn't you trust your dad?"

“No, no I trusted him. I  _ always _ trusted him--”

“You didn’t. If you had you wouldn't have hidden a war right under his nose.  Trust is what makes any relationship, Stiles. You can love someone to the moon and back but unless you trust them there will always be a canyon you can’t bridge. Both of you feel it even if you choose not to talk about it. And that canyon will get wider and wider the longer it goes on. Which is exactly what you told me happened.”

John tipped Stiles’s chin up and held it there so he had his son’s full attention.

“What did he do that broke your trust?”

Stiles struggled with the words and his loyalty and his love. 

“He forgot.”

The story spilled out in spurts and sobs. Claudia’s death. His dad’s drinking. The funeral casseroles everyone brought to feed them because his dad was grieving too hard to perform basic functions like cooking or shopping, then when they ran out. Stiles going to school without lunch or breakfast because his dad forgot the fridge was empty. Coming home to an empty house because his dad was pulling double shifts to avoid the empty hole screaming from every room.

“He didn’t mean to, I know he didn’t. He was hurting so bad and he wasn’t hungry, anyway. But he kept forgetting and I had to do something. I had to step up. I had to make sure I didn't lose him, too.”

John could picture it perfectly. His Claudia had died just over a year ago and he remembered with stark clarity just how much of a mess he’d been. The thing that had saved him from making the same mistake had been Shawn Hale. They’d partnered up shortly before Claudia’s death and he’d brought Laura around to take care of Stiles when John couldn’t trust Claudia to be alone with him. Between the two of them, they had kept John afloat and Stiles had never been alone.

Or forgotten.

John gathered Stiles into a crushing hug. Stiles clung back, fingers dug tight into his shirt. 

“I’m sorry,” John said into his hair. Stiles shuddered. “I’m sorry he did that to you. I’m sorry you had to endure that.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Stiles sobbed.

Parents weren't superheroes. They weren't saints or gods. The hardest lesson a child had to learn was that no matter how good or bad their parents were, at the end of the day they were only human. Imperfect, fucked up, trying their best or hardly trying at all, messy, struggling people. Most did the best they could and tried to do better when they failed. John was on that line working to be better every day. Stiles's dad had been, too, and neither of them always came out on top of things.

"I know he didn't mean to make that mistake, Stiles. But it still happened. It's nothing you should feel guilty for, though, that guilt isn't yours. The responsibility to make it better isn't yours. Not now, not then. It's time you stopped collecting other people's sins and making them your own."

John could see the puzzle pieces fitting together now. He knew how Stiles’s mind worked, knew how some small sleight could snowball into something huge in his head. And this Stiles had the extra component of turning guilt that didn’t belong to him into his own to save someone he loved from carrying it. Compounded over years, strengthened with the introduction of the supernatural, it had spun out of control into something he couldn’t contain. Not even Superman was strong enough to carry something like that.

“I don’t know how not to.”

“You can let me teach you. You can give it back to me.”

Stiles pulled away. “It’s not yours either. Not really.”

“Maybe not, but I’m still your dad. This is part of a parent’s job, Stiles. It's part of the privilege of parenthood, to take on the extra weight so my child doesn’t have to. To raise them better than I was. I am more than capable of carrying it. The question is, will you trust me to do it?”

Stiles's face was cracked open and vulnerable. His walls had been razed, his defenses taken down one by one. There was nowhere to hide, no more excuses to raise as shields. And the next step was solely Stiles's to take. John offered his hand, palm up.

Stiles didn't make him wait.

“How do I do that?”

John squeezed his hand. There was still so much more to untangle but he took it for what it was: hopeful surrender.

“Help me redistribute the load.” John picked up the pen and handed it to Stiles. “We'll start at the top and work our way down. You’re going to give me everything on your list that doesn’t truly belong to you. Then we’re going to look at what's left and what's on my list for you and figure out what does.”

Stiles took a deep breath. He looked as if he was about to jump off a cliff and didn’t know if he had a parachute on.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

But he leaped anyway, trusting John would catch him.


	5. Fault Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes healing is one step forward and twelve back and four to the left. Sometimes you can know a true thing but still believe the lie. Sometimes you never know what will break first until it hits from your blind spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I thought the last chapter was hard to write but this one gave me a run for my money. I promise I'll actually let him be happy at some point.

_Stiles knelt in an alley, his hands tied behind his back, the mask clinging to his face from the rain falling down.His side was soaked with warmth, the scars there ripped open, energy fading from him as he bled outThe barrel of the gun was leveled at his head.Dad was behind it, his face stone cold with anger, eyes blank._

_“You’re rabid,” Dad said.“Something like you has to be dealt with before you hurt others.”_

_The nogitsune hovered behind Dad, like a devil-on-the-shoulder parody.It wore Stiles’s face and shifted in and out of focus, a knife held under Dad’s chin._

_“How_ do _you deal with a rabid dog?” the nogitsune purred._

_Stiles lifted his head and a thousand words battled against his teeth but he had no mouth to defend himself or beg for mercy or warn Dad about the dark fox.He had no strength to move.Everything was gone: his strength, his magic, his luck.He was going to die and Dad would be the one to do it and if he lived long enough Dad would never forgive himself…_

_“Only one way,” Dad said, and pulled the trigger._

_But the nogitsune didn’t kill Dad.He laughed and the knife disappeared.Stiles gurgled, drowning, and Dad peeled the mask away._

~

Dad found Stiles on the porch, head in his hands, and gave him a cup of water.

"That's the third nightmare tonight."

Stiles drained the cup and massaged his forehead. The makings of a headache were brewing.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize.We should probably talk about it now.”

Stiles shook his head. "My brain is just being stupid."

"No, it's working through stuff,” Dad corrected.His joints creaked as he lowered himself to sit beside Stiles. “A lot of stuff, especially this week."

The week at the cabin was coming to an end. Every day had been pretty much like the first. They went on a run first thing in the morning to the lake and back, cleaned up, ate, and then began picking apart Stiles's long held and carefully constructed identity.

Dad was only doing what he thought was right. That's what Stiles kept telling himself as he lost more and more ground of what he was supposed to do and be. Dad had said that he would give Stiles jobs in exchange for what he was taking but so far none of them felt adequate for what he’d had.

Stiles was a son. He was an older..brother-ish figure to his younger self, legally a cousin. He was a student whose main job was to go to school, get good grades, and prepare for college. He was in charge of cooking most nights of the week and splitting other household chores between Mini-Stiles and Dad.He was supposed to continue with therapy and actually be honest with his therapist.

That was it.Stiles swallowed against the dream-memory of blood coming up his throat.It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. Just the mere thought of how little he was left with made his hands shake and his lungs constrict. 

Dad bumped his shoulder, bringing him back to the present.

“C’mon, kiddo.”

Stiles blew out a breath. 

“It wasn’t a real memory.Just…Just crap mashed together.”He gave Dad a brief rundown of the dream.“I know you would never really do that, okay?Like I said.My brain being stupid.”

“But you were scared it would happen at one time.”

Stiles didn’t have to answer.

“I’m sure if you told that dream to your therapist she could parse it down to exact measures on where all the parts came from and what they all mean.But to me, it sounds like you’re scared of yourself.”

Stiles scoffed and shook his head.

“Why else would your subconscious use me to describe you as a rabid dog?Which you aren’t, by the way.If you were we’d have a whole different set of problems we’d be dealing with.”

“I have been rabid, though, okay?I know what that feels like.”

“Like losing control?”

Stiles looked away.

“You’re not losing your control here, Stiles.You’re giving it to me.And I’m not going to drop it.”

“I know,” Stiles said, voice almost a whisper.“I know all of that intellectually, okay?But I need more to do.”

Maybe Dad was right in a way. Maybe Stiles _was_ scared of himself in some capacity because the thought of slowing down and having nothing to plug the gaps of his time was more than terrifying. It was a void. Stiles had already been a void once and while he knew the nogitsune was gone that emptiness was triggering.

It also meant there was an opportunity for something worse to fill it. Like all the damn trauma he barely held back on a good day.

“Then we’ll find appropriate responsibilities to fill some of the gaps, kiddo.You don’t have to be bogged down with them, though.Don’t want to stunt your growth.”

Stiles scrunched his face up, incredulous.“How is that stunting my growth?I’m already as tall as I’m gonna get here, as Mini-Stiles loves to remind me.”

Dad tapped Stiles’s forehead.

“Growth up here,” Dad tapped his chest next.“And here, genius.”

Trust Dad to bring everything back to the head and the heart, which was the source of almost every war Stiles had ever fought inside himself. 

“You can’t keep growing if you stay trapped.Give it time.You’ll be surprised what you start finding out about yourself and what you want out of life when you’re not constantly worried about keeping death at bay in a literal sense.”

Sure, that sounded nice in theory but death was…Well, it was death.It came without warning and took without mercy and he had already been left standing alone once.Stiles wasn’t sure if any amount of time would dull the terror aching alongside his bones of ending up like that again.

“It’s gonna be a while, Dad.Like, years.”

The whole trip here was about being honest, so Stiles might as well keep it going.

Dad put an arm over Stiles’s shoulders.

“We have time.”

How fucked up was it that that sentence, that sentiment, wasn’t so much a comfort as it was meant to be?Stiles looked up at the stars.The intense longing to go home burned just under his skin. 

“What if I never get there?”

Stiles didn’t want to end up like Gary, letting the past eat him alive and poison everything around him.But that was just it, wasn’t it?It already had.Stiles had become the Gary of his world fucking up things with his Dad, with the other people around him, and he carried it with him here.It lurked under his ribs every day, some toothy little monster constantly reminding Stiles that he didn’t belong, that he was too fucked up to fit in.He tried his best to dance around it, to be what he needed to be.

It was exhausting.And it was all he knew to do.There were no other parts of Stiles left anymore.

“Life is a marathon, kiddo.Don’t count yourself out just because you had to take some detours.You’ll get there in your own time.”

Stiles huffed even though it wasn’t really funny.

Dad squeezed his shoulder.“Come on.Come back in and try to get a little more sleep.”

“Do we still have to go jogging later?”He took Dad’s hand and let him pull Stiles to his feet. 

“We could try something a little different.”

Which meant they’d still be out doing _something_ god-awful early.Whatever.As long as it wasn’t jogging he could deal.Stiles liked sprinting just fine but anything more than that was a form of torture.

~

Stiles would have preferred jogging.

“Come on, now.Again.”

Stiles groaned and picked himself up.He dusted the dirt off his pants and squared up again.Dad corrected his stance and made a _come at me_ motion.

Stiles did.He managed to land a few hits and side stepped Dad’s leg swipe, only to end up back in the dirt when Dad took advantage of his imbalance.

“Gotta keep your feet under you, kiddo.”

“They were!”

“Then how did you end up on the ground?”

“Gravity’s always has it out for me.”

Dad snorted and failed to hide his smile.“Having raised a version of you, I kind of have to agree.”He held out his hand and pulled Stiles back up.“You’re getting better.I should get you set up with Shawn at the gym when we get back.He’ll be able to show you some things I can't.”

Stiles rubbed at his aching side.“I can barely survive you, I don’t stand a chance against him.”

Dad quirked an eyebrow.“And yet you managed to give us the slip for months.And take down people much bigger than you or Shawn.”

“Uh, yeah, because magic,” Stiles said and wiggled his fingers. _Obviously._ “I have serious advantages over both of you with that.”

“You’re also holding back right now.”

Stiles scowled. 

“Forgive me for not wanting to actually hit a senior citizen, that’s kind of frowned upon.”

Dad caught Stiles in a headlock and ruffled up his hair before he could dodge.Stiles squawked and tried to push him off but Dad held on and started poking at Stiles’s very sensitive sides. 

Stiles squeaked out a startled laugh and Dad paused.Oh, shit.

“No, Dad, wait!”

Dad took that as permission to get absolutely ruthless.Stiles curled in on himself and tried to throw him off, chest aching from involuntary laughter as Dad attacked Stiles’s most ticklish spots.

They ended up on the ground, Stiles begging and laughing and unable to do anything but take it until Dad finally had mercy.Stiles panted, still laughing, and Dad sat back on his heels triumphant.

“You are _cruel_ ,” Stiles said.“So cruel, I can’t breathe even _worse_ now.”

“Senior citizens tend to be grouchy, didn't you know that?”

Stiles let his arms flop to his sides and stared up at the sky.Clouds had started to gather and took on a stormy gray tint.Dad eased himself into a sitting position and closed his eyes, content to rest for a few minutes.He was at ease. Peaceful.Stiles couldn’t remember the last time his own Dad had looked that way.

Stiles shivered despite how hot he was.It brought him back to something that had been gnawing at him.Stiles fiddled with his shirt sleeve and watched the clouds lose shape and reform with the wind.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you—Do you think if I had just told my dad everything from the start, do you think it would have stopped what happened?”

The thought had plagued Stiles for days, ever since the initial confrontation Dad had sat him down for at the table.The more Dad made Stiles unravel himself the more Stiles wondered if one or two simple decisions could have saved everyone an immense amount of pain.

Dad tugged on Stiles’s arm until he sat up.The peace was gone, replaced with a steady but serious expression.

“There’s no point in going down that road, Stiles.What’s done can’t be changed.Only learned from.”Dad’s voice was gentle and he waited until Stiles nodded, though Stiles couldn’t bring himself to look up.“You know, I was so scared after Mini-You was born.I had no idea how to be a good father and I made myself sick worrying that I’d turn into my dad.I was afraid to even hold him some days."

"What, really?"

"Yeah. He was so small and defenseless.And I remembered feeling like that when my dad went into one of his rages or when Gary turned on me.”

Dad gazed off into the forest, expression conflicted and sad.Stiles swallowed around a lump in his own throat. 

“Something Claudia said helped me work past that.She said that I could either let my fear of making a mistake keep me from getting to know my son, or I could learn from everything that happened to me and use it to make a better path for both of us.”

Stiles scrubbed at his face and said, voice thick, “Wow.”

“She was always the smart one.”Dad chuckled.“Her point stands here, too.You don’t live in the past, you live _here_ , and the only way is forward.”

Stiles still wasn’t sure how to start doing that.He was still stuck on the fact that dad had been _scared_ of Mini-Stiles.Of not being good enough.It was an idea that refused to compute any way he tried it.

Because Dad was— he was _Dad_.Dad seemed to always know what to do.Well.Until Stiles had fucked everything up.

“Come on.”Dad poked at him until Stiles stood up.“I think we’ve had enough rough housing for today.Let’s get something to eat.”

After soup and sandwiches, they settled down at the table and went over the now completed responsibility lists.The sight was still distressing.

“My side is too short.”

“No, your side is more fair.”

Stiles clenched his teeth and sighed aggressively.He knew he was acting ridiculous.But his side of the list had gone from a full page down to a few lines and it made Stiles kind of want to puke or throw a raging, toddler tantrum.The one thing that kept him doing either, besides what little dignity he had left, was that he was just too tired to make the effort.

The only big things from his original list he’d been allowed to keep were Magical Defense Measures and Helping At The Station.That was it.The first he got to keep because he was the only one capable of doing it, at least until Dad decided Mini-Stiles was mature enough to start learning magic, if he even had a spark in this world.

The second was something Stiles had actually enjoyed before the supernatural shenanigans hit town.It had mainly entailed updating the physical files of closed cases, cleaning up the storage room, and helping the new grunts update the network computer programs.Over the summers when Scott had been laid up with asthma or gone on the mandatory visits to his Dad, it had been the only place Stiles was welcome.Like hanging out with extended family members, he supposed.

Dad had added in the more mundane things like chores, watching Mini-Stiles, school, and therapy. 

“I don’t have enough to do, Dad.Seriously.All this, it will barely take up my time.It already barely does.”

“This is the kind of load a teenager should expect to bear, Stiles.It’s already more than most because I’m a single parent and you’re taking up some slack that a mother usually would with the housework and watching Mini-Stiles.Remember what I said about stunting your growth?”

“Yes, okay.”

“Besides, these are just jobs.There are a lot of other things that will fill up your dreaded free time, kiddo.”

Stiles made a face.“Like what?”

“Gym time, for one.I know you’re still worried about my health, despite the fact that I’m actually in better shape than you for the most part.”Dad gave him a pointed look.Stiles scowled.“Since you aren’t doing gym at school we’ll start going to go as a family a couple nights a week.You can get more training under Shawn and Mini-Stiles can burn off some excess energy.Win-win.”

“Oh.”Stiles thought that over.It…wasn’t a bad idea at all.“Why are you letting me train with Shawn if I’m not supposed to do any of my old extra curriculars?”

“Because the world is a dangerous place and, now that I know you better, I’m aware that your instincts would compel you to act if something happened in front of you.I still only expect you to use these skills if there’s no other choice, but I’d rather you have them to fill back on if you need to.However,” Dad said with emphasis.“If you use these skills irresponsibly _again_ then not only will you be grounded for a long time I will let Shawn run your ass ragged.This week with me will be a picnic in comparison, got it?”

“Got it.”Stiles squirmed under the scrutiny.

“Good.Now, can we agree on this division of labor?”

Stiles looked down at the lists.He still wanted some of his jobs back.He still felt like his side was too sparse.But Stiles had to admit that he couldn’t fight for anything more.Every point he’s originally had he’d had to argue and defend until he convinced Dad it was fair for him to have and…Okay, so most of them weren’t fair when he actually thought about them and Dad had swept them up like he was making bank in Monopoly.

Stiles still wanted them, though.They were comfortable weights.

“I can agree,” he said.“But I want some of them back someday.”

Dad surprised Stiles by smiling.“Someday, when the time is right.”Then he held his hand out and Stiles took it.They shook. 

It felt like the ending of something. 

And maybe a bit like the beginning of something else, as well.

~

They left the cabin early the next morning.Stiles leaned his head against the window and let his eyes unfocus on the drive back.

Dad put the radio on low.The lull of music and commercials was jarring after a week with no electronics.Even Dad must have thought so because he turned it off before they hit the highway.Then it was just the rattle-rumble of the engine and the swoosh of air as the cruiser got up to speed.

Stiles was exhausted.More mentally than physically, though.Everything in his head felt like it had been ripped out and put back rearranged.As the cruiser cut through the morning fog, Stiles wondered how Derek was doing.If he regretted helping Stiles now. 

Funny.Stiles hadn’t thought about Derek at all while at the cabin.Dad hadn’t given Stiles time to prepare _anything_ and by the time each night had rolled around Stiles had been wiped out due to the high emotions, the panic attacks, and the stupid jogging.He could only focus on what Dad hit him with at every turn and Stiles never did get ahead of him.

It was a shitty thing Stiles had done, dragging Derek into his investigation.Stiles had treated him like he used to treat Scott, and given how that had turned out so many times, Stiles really should have been better.

“Stop chewing your nails,” Dad chided.“What’s going through your head now?”

Stiles’s hand dropped from his mouth.

“Derek.I need to apologize to him.For dragging him into my mess.”

Stiles may have just ruined something good that was tentatively coming along.He knew Talia Hale had asked Derek to keep an eye on Stiles but Stiles was sure they had moved past that and into some kind of friendship.Derek wasn’t good at hiding his feelings and he’d never seemed eager to dump Stiles’s company, even when Stiles got onto some rant or another about whatever his brain latched onto at the moment. 

People who couldn’t handle Stiles had no reservations about telling him to shut up for get lost.The few who never did ended up like Scott: with the double edged blade of Stiles’s undying loyalty and his near supernatural ability to get them into trouble.

Or dead.

But who knew how Derek would feel now?His Derek had never talked much about his mom, but Stiles bet that Talia Hale was a force to be reckoned with.She had to be as an alpha.Especially as an Alpha who held sway over such a large territory and who knew how many individual wolves. 

Stiles had convinced Derek to go into something sketchy and dangerous.He’d put Derek at odds with Shawn so it was easy bet that Talia would have been no less happy about the situation.Derek was probably regretting ever speaking to Stiles.

“He’ll be over tomorrow with your homework for the week,” Dad said carefully.

“Okay.”

Stiles had an entire day to figure out how to apologize for being a fucked up fuck up and hope it wasn’t the end of things.He missed Derek. 

Shit.Laura was probably going to kick his ass when she came by next.

Dad reached over and squeezed his shoulder.Stiles gave him a brief smile and went back to staring out the window.

The house was dark and quiet when they got home.No one had been there all week and it felt strange, like walking back into an old dream.The case file Stiles and Derek had put together was nowhere to be seen.No doubt Shawn had it and was running down leads.Dad dropped his keys in the old candy dish by the door and sighed.

“Why don’t you go get a hot shower and I’ll get something started for breakfast.”

“Actually, I think I may just go lay down,” Stiles said.“I’m still tired.”

Dad studied him for a moment before he nodded.“I’ll wake you up for lunch, then.”Dad pulled him into hug kissed his temple.“I’m really proud of you, kiddo.I know this week was brutal.But you did good.”

Stiles buried his face in Dad’s jacket for a moment.“Thanks.”

Dad ruffled his hair.“Go get some rest.I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Upstairs, Stiles closed his door and dropped his backpack on the floor.His room was almost as big as that entire cabin had been, he realized.The house suddenly seemed too big.But he could hear dad puttering around the kitchen opening and closing cabinets.He wasn’t that far away.

Stiles got into pajamas and slipped into bed.It was miles more comfortable than the twin had been.He hugged a pillow to his chest and stared at the wall as he tried to figure out what he was actually feeling.He thought he would have been relieved to be back at the house and away from the preserve.He thought he’d feel tons better with a place to retreat to away from Dad and questions and painful conversations.

The void inside him grew.

Stiles closed his eyes and concentrated on Dad’s movements downstairs.Somewhere outside a car honked and a couple of dogs barked at each other.Someone close had a radio going, the Top 40 cycling through.The noise was comforting and jarring at the same time. 

He pulled the blanket over his head and curled up.Maybe he’d feel better when he woke up.

~

Melissa dropped Mini-Stiles off that evening and Scott accompanied him to say hi.Both boys tackled Stiles to the ground and knocked the wind out of him. 

“Oh, god, you’re a million pounds,” Stiles wheezed.

Mini-Stiles cackled and refused to move until Stiles attacked the same tickle spots Dad had found that morning.When he got to his feet Melissa surprised him by dragging Stiles into a hug.

“Good to have you back,” she said.

Stiles froze for a minute before he returned the hug.He hadn’t spent much time with this Melissa while he was conscious.She’d been at the hospital when he’d gone in because of the omega, and he’d seen her now and then when picking up or dropping Mini-Stiles and Scott there.She had hugged him like this once, to thank him for saving little Scott in the woods.

Stiles had wanted to throw himself off a cliff.

The entire time, all mind did was vomit up apologies for getting her son killed in another world.He never said them.He wasn’t sure how much Dad had told her and, to be honest, he never wanted to have that conversation with her.So he shoved those thoughts and apologies down as far as they would go and tried not to feel like Scott’s blood was drenching his hands, even if he had saved this version of him.

“Thanks,” Stiles murmured.

Melissa patted his back and gave him a critical once over.Whatever she saw was satisfactory. 

“Okay, Scott.Time to go.We need to get dinner ready.”

Scott groaned but he said goodbye, hugged Stiles one more time, and then left with Melissa.Dad was ordering in for them so Stiles went upstairs to use the bathroom.When he came out Mini-Stiles was sitting on his bed, expectant.

“Is your head on straight now?” was what Mini-Stiles opened with. 

There were oh, so many ways Stiles could answer that and none of them he wanted to actually follow up on.

“Somewhat,” he said.

Mini-Stiles squinted at him and then, before he could react, punched Stiles in the side hard.Stiles wasn’t expecting it and there wasn’t near the amount of force to seriously hurt him, but it made Stiles hunch over and wheeze.

“The fuck was that for?” Stiles demanded.

Mini-Stiles bunched his fists up.“I thought Dad was going to arrest you, dumb ass.”

“So you punch me when he doesn’t?”

Mini-Stiles shoved at him until Stiles backed up into the bed.Stiles blocked his hits, frustrated and annoyed and really concerned, until Mini-Stiles stopped and dropped his hands looking so miserable that Stiles froze.

“Dude, what’s going on?”

Mini-Stiles scrubbed at his face and then crossed his arms, unwilling to talk.Stiles felt more lost than ever. 

“I thought you were going away,” Mini-Stiles said.

Stiles tried to find some traction, tried to figure out his line of thinking.“I didn’t exactly know Dad was gonna cart me off to the middle of nowhere, okay?Believe me, that never crossed my mind.”

“No, I thought you were going away forever.And you’re not supposed to _leave_.You came here and you do magic and have all these scars and it’s scary but you don’t treat me like I’m stupid and Scott likes you and I thought you were my _friend_ —“

Mini-Stiles wasn’t making much sense but Stiles realized he was having a meltdown and riding the edge of a panic attack.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

Stiles reached out to him but Mini-Stiles jerked away.His face was getting redder by the second and his breathing was coming in short gasps.

“It’s not okay!You had to go be dumb and I thought you’d never come back and I didn’t even get to say goodbye!”

Mini-Stiles swung at him again.It still stung but Stiles didn’t try to defend himself.That just seemed to make Mini-Stiles madder and he launched himself at Stiles.They went down and Mini-Stiles ended up on top of Stiles.Pain burst as a fist connected to his face at the right angle.

“HEY!”

Dad wrestled Mini-Stiles off and held him up by the middle.He still struggled and kicked, his face a tiny ball of fury.Stiles slowly lowered his arms.Something warm dripped from his nose and Stiles wiped it on his sleeve.Dad noticed and his face went dark.

“Dad, it’s fine—“

“No, this is anything but fine.We don’t hit each other in this house.”Dad sat Mini-Stiles back on his feet and kept a firm grasp on his arm.“Now someone better start talking.”

Mini-Stiles clamped his mouth shut, mutinous.Stiles didn’t even know what to say, so he went with, “It’s fine.I think I had it coming.”It was probably true, anyway.

Dad was not on board with that explanation.

“Stiles?” he looked down at Mini-Stiles.

Mini-Stiles jerked his arm out of Dad’s hand and stomped away.Stiles flinched at the slammed door.It rattled the walls of his room.Dad took half a step after him, changed his mind, then turned back to Stiles and helped him stand. 

“It’s fine, it doesn’t even hurt.”

Dad sighed.“Yes it does.Come on.”Dad ushered him to the bathroom and Stiles plugged his nose and cleaned the blood off his chin.“What started it?”

Stiles was still reeling from the outburst.He thought back over what Mini-Stiles had said.

“He thought I wasn’t coming back at all, I guess.I think he’s feeling angry and guilty.And probably angry about feeling guilty since he found the file in the first place.”And since Mini-Stiles didn’t take it out on Scott or Melissa then Stiles himself was the first acceptable target once he got home. 

It was the fight with Jackson after his mom died all over again, basically.

Dad blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache.

“And he’s probably stewed about it all week and blown it way out of proportion the same way you do.”

Stiles turned away and spat blood into the sink and tried to push his own guilt back down.Thinking of it that way, Stiles found he was thoroughly horrified at what Mini-Stiles’s thought process must have been, especially left on his own for a whole week with no way of touching base with Dad. 

_I didn’t even get to say goodbye!_

Stiles hated his own brain on a good day.Seeing it function the same way in Mini-Stiles was heartbreaking and he hated himself even more for not having the ability to be someone better.

More than that, Stiles hadn’t given a second thought to his younger self at all during the past week.That realization upended Stiles’s insides and he fought to keep his breathing steady.

“Let me see.”

Dad turned Stiles’s face toward the light and Stiles looked away.

“I can see the gears turning in your head, too, kid.So let me stop you where you are.We’re gonna get this talked out in a minute when he’s a bit cooler.I don’t need both of you spiraling tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I meant it.It’s not okay that he hit you.And it’s not okay that you let him.”Dad leveled Stiles a stern look.“You don’t deserve to be hit, understand?”

No, Stiles probably deserved worse for this.

“Okay.”

Dad handed him the toilet paper roll and Stiles switched out the wad in his nose.After a few minutes the bleeding stopped.He just had the cloying taste stuck in his mouth and throat.

“All right.Go downstairs and set the table.Pizza should be here soon.I’m going to talk to him and then we’re all going to sit down and straighten this out.”

Stiles ducked out of the bathroom and waited by the door downstairs.He heard the murmur of Dad’s voice and the up and down anger and sobs of Mini-Stiles’s for a while.The pizza came and Stiles set it out and waited, feeling vaguely nauseous as he tapped out his anxiety on the table.When Dad and Mini-Stiles came down Dad looked weary and Mini-Stiles was red in the face from crying.Stiles pretended not to notice and silently passed them plates.Dad waved off the pizza.

“You need to apologize,” Dad said and nudged Mini-Stiles.

Mini-Stiles looked everywhere but at Stiles.

“’m sorry I hit you.”

“It’s—“

Dad raised an eyebrow.

“Thank you,” Stiles finished.“Apology accepted.”

Dad nudged Mini-Stiles again, who huffed and kicked his legs out.

“I was scared and mad and I shouldn’t have done that.It was mean, too.It won’t happen again.”

“Okay.”

Mini-Stiles scowled down at his plate with an expression that told Stiles the thing wasn’t really resolved yet.Dinner was a stilted affair.Stiles withdrew into himself and only ate a few pieces, unable to taste any of it.Mini-Stiles was quiet, too, but stuffed his face until his stomach hurt.Dad was back to looking weary and worn out.No doubt he’d been picturing tonight going completely different.

Stiles did the dishes and went up to bed afterwards.Dad and Mini-Stiles were still in the living room talking and Stiles figured the best place he could be was nowhere near.He felt a little ridiculous for running away from a pint-sized version of himself but he also knew himself.Stiles’s anger was something that smoldered continuously.It exploded given the right circumstances but it never truly went out.

Mini-Stiles was definitely going to blow up again but next time it would happen when Dad wasn’t there.By then he would have work himself up into another tizzy and finally spit out the words he couldn’t formulate tonight.Or maybe didn’t want to admit yet.

Dad came to check on him later.It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet but Stiles was in bed and dozing.Dad stayed at the door and just watched him for a minute before softly closed the door.A poisonous voice in Stiles’s head wondered if Dad regretted taking Stiles in now that it was pitting him against his real son.A smaller voice knew that this wasn’t the end of the world, that he could fix this because he knew himself.  All he had to do was wait. And hope that Mini-Stiles didn't decide to hate him like he did Jackson. Because if he did, if Stiles couldn't fix this...

Stiles would have no place left to go. He would mess up Mini-Stiles's relationship with Dad just for existing in the same space. A living fault line splitting the household. An unnatural disaster disrupting lives that had been getting along just fine before he arrived.

Stiles covered his ears, as futile a gesture as it was pathetic, and tried to drown them both out by concentrating on the sound of his own selfish heart.


	6. The Worst Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst enemy can always be found lurking in the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a panic attack and some disassociation.

Stiles was a nervous wreck the next morning as he waited for Derek to arrive.Mini-Stiles had left the house early, gone back to Scott’s, and Dad had clenched his jaw as the door slammed.

Breakfast churned in his stomach as Stiles paced around his room. 

It figured, Stiles thought darkly.Just as he was getting a foothold in the right direction everything came back to turn sour again. 

Derek arrived around nine.Stiles felt him and Laura cross the wards as they came up the porch.With a deep breath Stiles steeled himself and went down to meet them.Whatever Derek decided he would accept.Even if it was the end of their tentative friendship.

Stiles made it to the living room by the time Dad opened the door and invited them in. 

“There’s the troublemaker.Looks like you survived the woods alright,” Laura said, giving him a once over. 

She didn’t appear murderous by any standards so Stiles ventured farther into the living room and nodded at her.Then he turned to Derek, who had a heavy backpack slung over his shoulder. Stiles's hands fidgeted, twisting his fingers until they popped.

“Hey.”

The apologies Stiles had rehearsed all night and morning dried up in his throat.He’d come up with about fifty good, solid ones but they all scattered when he opened his mouth. 

Derek rolled his eyes and dropped the backpack on the floor.

“I told you last week that I made my own decisions, Stiles.I’m not mad at you.”

Stiles swallowed.“You should be.”

“Well, I’m not.I’m grounded for a while but I still don’t regret it.”

Something warm and tentative came to life under Stiles’s ribs.

“Really?”

“I seriously regret having Laura for a sister but that’s about it.”

Laura smacked Derek’s head and made a face at him.“Watch it, Der-Bear.I’m your parole officer for the foreseeable future.You don’t want to piss me off.”

“What?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Laura turned a blinding smile on Stiles.“For the next two weeks I’m going to be everywhere you are.Taking you both to school, picking you both up afterward, hanging out with both of you on the weekends, making sure you do all your homework and toe the line to the very centimeter.”

“No,” Stiles said, unbelieving.

“Oh, yes.We are going to get to be such good friends.”Laura elbowed Derek in the side.“Pick that back up.We need to make sure Stiles gets a head start on his homework.Can’t have him falling behind because you two raided a drug den.”

“We didn’t raid a drug den!” Stiles said.He turned to Dad but saw before he even asked that Dad was fully on board with this decision and would not budge.Stiles blew out an irritated breath.

Grounding he had expected.Hadn’t even planned on fighting or skirting around it, but this?This was downright humiliating.

“Don’t let me keep you, kids.I’m going to run some errands.”Dad picked up his keys and jingled them.

“I’ll make sure he does his homework and chores, Mr. Stilinski.”

Dad saluted Laura and then left them to her tender mercies.

Of which she had none.

~

Laura hadn’t been kidding when she said she would accompany them everywhere.She showed up bright and early on Monday morning with Derek blinking owlishly in the passenger seat of her car.Stiles and Mini-Stiles climbed in the back.Laura made a pit stop for Scott and then dropped them all off at their respective schools.

“Have a _wonderful_ day, sweeties!” she called out loud enough heads turned their way on the crowded high school lawn.

Derek glared at everyone around while Stiles went beet red, mortified.

“She’s gonna do that every day,” Derek warned him in defeat.Something told Stiles she’d done it all the previous week as well.

"I'm tempted to skip out right here."”

“Don’t,” Derek said.“She will hunt you down and behave even worse for longer.”

Stiles sighed and twisted his backpack straps.“Speaking from experience?”

“Laura once spent two weeks booby trapping my room because I got mad and dumped paint on her dress before she went to someone’s birthday party.She was eight.Laura is a lot more creative now.”

Stiles pursed his lips.

“Damn it.”

Laura was there to pick them up after school, blasting Britney Spears with the windows rolled down.She gave them an exaggerated wave and called, “Come on, sweeties, you have a curfew!”

No one cared about Derek’s murder glare and laughter rang out across the parking lot.Laura smiled at the attention and even waved to a couple seniors she seemed to know.

“If we work together I bet we could take her.”

“We really could not.”

“I’ve taken on scarier things than Laura,” Stiles said.

“No,” Derek tugged him toward the car.“You really haven’t.”

People pointed and laughed while they got into the car.Laura waved to them all like she was homecoming queen in a parade as the car slowly crawled out of the lot and onto the road.Only when she got up to speed did she mute the stereo.

“So, how was your first day back?”

Stiles crossed his arms and pointedly said nothing. 

“It was fine.He turned in what he finished yesterday and we were on time to all our classes,” Derek said.

“Wonderful.Punctuality is an important skill to maintain.”

Laura kept chatting the entire way to pick up Mini-Stiles and Scott and then all the way to their houses.She asked Stiles questions but he refused to answer.That didn’t deter her at all and she didn’t seem to mind.She waved and blew kisses as she drove away from the Stilinski residence, Derek letting out a long suffering sigh.

“Looks like you pissed her off good,” Mini-Stiles snickered.

“The feeling is mutual,” he muttered.

Mini-Stiles scoffed.“Well, you deserve it.I can’t wait to see how she ups her game.”

He disappeared into the house before Stiles could answer.Great.Now they were in the cutting remarks phase of Mini-Stiles’s anger.Stiles hitched his backpack higher and went right up to his room and slammed the door.

~

The week crawled on like that.Laura was, indeed, highly creative in her humiliation tactics and soon people gathered on the front lawn of the school just to see what she did next.It led to some catcalling in the hallways and Stiles had to think on why it would be a Very Bad Thing to empty his spell reserve on people. 

He grit his teeth and kept his mouth shut, both at school and when Laura picked them up.It was petulant of him but he knew if he reacted at the wrong second he was going to explode on someone.Probably literally.It would be bad enough at some random kid at school.It would be worse if he did so at Laura.

Stiles had no doubt she would drop his ass in the dirt faster than Dad could and wouldn’t be near so gentle about it.

Derek was equally glum but resigned about the whole affair.

“It’s just for another week, then she’ll back off.”

“You really believe that?”

Derek sighed and finished his pudding cup.They weren’t allowed off campus for lunch now, either, so they had to either bring their own or brave the cafeteria fare.Stiles pushed his uneaten portion away and pillowed his head in his arms.

“Laura goes overboard on everything she does.It’s just how she is.Once our time is up she’ll back off.Not completely, mind.But she won’t actively go out of her way to make us regret our life choices.”

Stiles groaned.

The one place he seemed to be able to channel his frustrations was in gym.Stiles hit the closets hard and was rough with the equipment and cleaned until his hands were raw from the chemicals.Finstock kept a wary eye on him but so long as Stiles didn’t throw anything or have a meltdown it wasn’t a problem.

Laura wrinkled her nose at the smell when he got in the car but Stiles figured she could suck it for putting _MMMBop_ on repeat.

When the weekend arrived Stiles had half a hope of sleeping in and just forgetting about the world for a while.Laura arrived at eight-thirty with Derek and dragged him out of bed for breakfast, homework/makeup work sessions in the kitchen, and then left them there to play video games with Mini-Stiles.

Dad was already gone, a good thing because Stiles was in no mood to censor himself.Derek worked quietly away at his history, his eyes screwed up as he mouthed the words he was reading.Stiles struggled on with his math.Normally he was good at it, and this was all stuff he had done before, but it just wasn’t computing that morning.Probably because he’d been forced into it unwillingly.

Mini-Stiles came into the kitchen to get a snack and kicked at Stiles’s chair.“Oops!” he called.Stiles grit his teeth and kept going.

It happened two more times before they broke for lunch.Then Mini-Stiles bumped into him and spilled chips all over the floor, which Stiles had to pick up.Stiles knew exactly what he was doing and today was the wrong day for it.

Derek and Laura left around two and as soon as they pulled away Stiles went back upstairs.

“Where are you going?” Mini-Stiles called after him.

“None of your business!”

Stiles slammed his door and locked it.He wouldn’t put it past his younger self to barge or sneak in to be an even bigger brat now that there were no other people to buffer them.He didn’t have Scott to meet with, either, since he was spending time with Melissa on one of her rare days off.

Stiles collapsed backward onto his bed with a groan.He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to run somewhere, climb the roof, or go beat some asshole criminal. All three sounded awesome.

Well, one of them he could do without breaking the rules of his grounding.Stiles shimmied out the window and up onto the roof.It was a nice day, sunny with a sharp bite of spring but not too cold.Stiles found a place to perch away from any prying eyes on the street and overlooking over the back yard. 

He finally took a deep breath and let it out.One more week and he could get away from Laura and all her ridiculousness.This would settle down.Mini-Stiles would blow up sooner or later and finally get over this snit he was in before Stiles took him to a sandpit and buried him.Hopefully.

Things would go back to normal.Whatever normal was now.

Stiles eventually got bored up top and went back to his room to drag his charm kit up with him to work on sewing more of his clothing.He finally had the right amount of charm to power ratio that wouldn’t make any of them cancel each other out.The only thing was that certain fiber blends tended to mess with the potency, something he’d never thought about before.Cotton and denim worked best but anything with extras, like a t-shirt with print or blended fibers, was more likely to fail or go wonky.

Which led to Stiles unthreading a lot of his previous work and slowly switching those garments out for new, more compatible pieces.It was painstaking, mind numbing, and the perfect excuse to let his mind go for a while.Birds chirped in the trees.Cars sped up and down the street. 

Calm spread through him before he even realized it as his fingers moved the needle and thread and funneled magic down into the shapes.Time slipped away and the sun moved overhead.

He startled when the phone in his pocket began buzzing.

Stiles leaned back and fished it out.Only when he flipped it open did he realize it was evening and shadows crawled long and low over the backyard.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Stiles.Where the hell are you,” Dad asked.

“At the house.Where are you?”

“ _I’m_ at the house and you are nowhere that I can find.”Stiles heard Dad moving around and go up the stairs.“Mini-You hasn’t seen you in hours and is getting worried.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.Sure, that was likely. 

“Hold on.”

He gathered his sewing and stuffed it in the plastic bag.He swung himself back into his room through the window just as Dad unlocked his bedroom door.Dad looked up at the ceiling, one hand on his chest, and snapped his cell phone shut.

“Damn it, Stiles, the hell were you doing on the roof?”

“Getting away from Mini-Me.”Stiles tossed the sewing onto his bed and closed the window. 

Dad sighed.“I guess that means you two still haven’t settled your differences.”

“Hey, he’s the one that keeps acting like a jerk.I’m tired of it.I already have everyone at school laughing at me everyday because of Laura and then I can’t even sleep in and he keeps being a little shit every chance he has.”

Dad held up his hands.“Hey, okay.Come on, sit down for a second.”Dad directed him to the bed and took a seat beside Stiles.“I can’t do anything to control Laura but let’s see if we can’t get this thing with Mini-You settled, alright?”

Stiles rolled his eyes again.“He needs to get over himself.”

That probably wasn’t fair but Stiles didn’t feel like being fair or nice.He wanted the prickly tension in the house to go away so he didn’t feel like he needed to hide from the people in it.He wanted to stop feeling guilty every time Mini-Stiles looked at him like Stiles was ruining his life.And he wanted Dad to not have to be in the middle of it all. 

“I think you and he need to actually sit down and talk before that will happen.”

“I’ve done enough talking to last me a while, thanks.”

Dad patted his back.“He hasn’t.Come on.Let’s go make something for dinner and we’ll figure it out.”

Stiles groaned but followed Dad.

“How often do you go up on the roof, anyway?”

Stiles shrugged.“Whenever I need some air.Usually at night.”

“At night?!”

“Dad.I won’t fall.”

“Please don’t.The last thing you need after everything is to break your fool neck.”Dad gripped the back of Stiles’s neck with a gentle shake.

Stiles huffed and tried not to grin but failed.Mini-Stiles was in the living room, slouched down on the couch.He barely looked up when they came downstairs, though his eyes darted over to them.

“Finally come out of hiding?”

“Enough,” Dad warned before Stiles could retort.

Mini-Stiles sunk lower into the couch and kicked his foot out, petulant.Dinner was another sullen affair.Stiles ignored his younger self and Mini-Stiles ignored him.Dad didn’t even try to make small talk.When they finished eating Dad held up his hand.

“You two are staying at this table until you work out what’s wrong.I don’t care if it takes all night.”

“But Scott’s gonna be online later!”

“Then you better get this figured out before then, hadn’t you?”

Dad gathered the dishes and took them to the sink, pointedly ignoring them.Stiles sat back and crossed his arms while Mini-Stiles whined and huffed and rolled his eyes.

“Well?” Stiles said. 

Mini-Stiles scowled and kicked at a chair.

“Look, he really will keep us here all night.So just say whatever it is you need to say and get it over with.”

Mini-Stiles glared.“This is all your stupid fault.”

“Yeah?Because I’m not the one acting like an asshole right now.”

Mini-Stiles gaped at him.“Well, _you’re_ the bigger asshole!You come here and make everyone like you and then you go off an be stupid and get into trouble. You make everything difficult!"

“So?Stupid and trouble is part of who we are.Have you never been stupid and gotten in trouble?”

“I always have Scott with me!”

Stiles raised his eyebrow. “I had Derek.We were fine.”

Dad didn’t say a word but the sudden shift in his stance told Stiles what he thought of _that_.

“Fine enough you got caught and had to have an intervention for a whole week, but sure.”

Stiles leaned forward.“Hey, you’re the one who went snooping in the first place.”

Mini-Stiles drew back as if he’d been slapped.His face screwed up, like he wanted to cry before he pulled it back in, and Stiles realized he’d gone too far.Mini-Stiles shoved away from the table.

“You’re selfish and mean and I wish you’d never come here!”

Mini-Stiles stomped up the stairs and slammed his door.Stiles gripped his forearms and his stomach twisted on itself.Behind him, Dad turned off the water tap and dried his hands.

“I screwed that up.”

Dad squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s a family talent sometimes.You both have the same temper.”

Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat.“I don’t know what he wants from me.I’m here, I came back.Why the hell is he so mad still?”

Dad took a seat and ran a hand through his hair.Weary lines deepened around his eyes and made Stiles feel even worse.Dad shouldn’t have to be dealing with this on top of everything else. 

“He was scared, Stiles.Fear can make us say and do things we’d normally never do.It doesn’t help that you’re both prickly and stubborn.”

Or that both of them were vicious enough to strike at the most vulnerable places they knew.Except when it came to Scott, but that’s because Scott would cry and that was a whole other level of uncomfortable for them. 

“Sometimes I wonder if I should be here at all.”

“The answer to that will always be yes, Stiles.”Dad leveled him a stern gaze.“This is your home just as much as it is his and I want you both here.He loves you even if he’s not willing to show it.But, you could stand to watch your words, too.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Which meant it was up to Stiles to actually make this right.Stiles groaned and went to the living room.He was not sibling material.He didn’t know what to do with someone like Mini-Stiles.Any olive branch he’d extended since he came back was rebuked and sneered at.It was like Mini-Stiles was just asking for him to shove his face into the mud or stuff something disgusting downhis shirt.

Stiles was tempted to do either or both of those more and more each day.

The air between them was chilly as the weekend faded into the next week.Laura’s antics calmed down but even that didn’t help lift Stiles’s overall mood.Mini-Stiles went from supreme annoyance to aggressive cold shoulder, not even acknowledging him whether Dad was home or at work.Dad talked with him several times and Stiles tried.Neither of them had much luck.

Stiles mostly ended up frustrated and back on the roof, sometimes with his sewing kit, sometimes just to look at the stars and complain in his head. 

“Well, it stands to reason you’d have trouble with him,” Derek said one day at lunch when Stiles needed to rant to an actual person he didn't live with.“He’s basically you and you have enough trouble with yourself on a good day.”

Stiles shoved at Derek.“Thanks, asshole.”

Derek shrugged.“Just calling it like I see it.”

“You have any advice?I mean, you have way more siblings than I do.”

Derek snorted.“If Cora is mad at me she fumes for a while and I apologize and then take her for ice cream.If the twins are mad at me I apologize, make them laugh, and take them out for ice cream.”

“What about when Laura’s mad at you?”

“I hide until someone else distracts her and then leave ice cream coupons on her dresser with a written apology note.”

Stiles snorted milk out of his nose all over the cafeteria table.Derek threw a wad of napkins at his head.

“I don’t know if ice cream’s gonna work on him," Stiles said as he mopped his mess up.

“Won’t know until you try, right?”

Stiles sighed.“Yeah, but it’ll have to wait until we’re not grounded.I can’t see Laura letting us go off to get a couple cones when she could be torturing you and me.”

Derek made a face and nodded his head.Stiles hated being right sometimes.

Which left the only doable thing as the apology.Stiles didn’t feel like he should have to apologize.Mini-Stiles was the one who went snooping and then turned the file over to Dad.He could admit now that it was probably a good move, even if the following three weeks had been the most uncomfortable ever.But after Mini-Stiles’s continued antics Stiles felt an apology was owed to _him_.

But, knowing himself, he’d be waiting for ice cream in hell before that ever happened sincerely.

~

On the second weekend of his grounding, after another morning of homework, Laura announced that she was taking Stiles out for a minute and left Derek in charge.Stiles reluctantly grabbed his coat and shoes and followed her out of the house. 

“Are you going to kill me and dump my body somewhere?” he asked as they left the main thoroughfare and came to an empty lot in front of what used to be a laundromat.The windows were boarded up and birds were nesting all over the tilting sign.

“Nah, that would take too much work and it would make Derek cry at this point.”Laura winked at him and parked the car in the middle of the lot.“I just wanted to chat without any extra ears around.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow.“That’s not filling me with confidence.”

“You are as paranoid as Derek, it’s a match made in heaven,” she muttered.

“It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

“Har har.”Laura unbuckled her seat belt and turned to side sideways in the seat.“I just want to say that I’m impressed with how well you held out the past two weeks.I was sure you’d blow a gasket and hex me at some point.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows.“I definitely thought about it.”

“I’m sure.Derek speaks really highly of you, you know.Even if what you both did was incredibly stupid.”

Stiles shifted, guilt spiking in his stomach. 

Laura continued.“Derek seems to think you’re a really awesome friend.And, since I trust him in most things, I think you are to.So from here on out you and I are going to be friends, too.Real friends, not just probation officer and felon.”She held out her hand.

Stiles regarded it for a minute.

“Is this some sort of fake out trap?Not that I doubt you can be sincere, but, well, I sort of am right now.”

“Shake my damn hand, Stilinski, this is genuine.”

Stiles shook her hand and was then pulled into a crushing hug.

“And if either of you consider making another stupid decision like this, I had better be the one you call _before_ you go do it.”

“So you can talk us out of it?” he wheezed.

She let him go.“No, dumbass, so I can be there, too.There’s a reason I never get in trouble for seventy-five percept of the things I do.I’ve always been the better liar.And planner.And executioner.Things just go better when I’m in charge, is what I’m saying.”

Stiles gaped at her and then began laughing.Laura joined in, her eyes sparkling with mischief. 

“So?What’ya say, friends?”

“Friends would be nice, but only if you stop with the embarrassment train.”

“Done.I just had to make sure I got my point across.”

“You could have just punched me.”

“Please, I’m a sadist, that would be no fun.”Laura bit her lip in thought.Then she asked, somewhat softly, “Hey, would you mind showing me some of your magic?”

Stiles blinked at the shift.“Um.Sure?What did you have in mind?”

“Surprise me.”

Stiles squinted at her but he couldn’t detect any traps in her body language.She was relaxed, face open, waiting.The way Derek was when he was listening.

“Let’s go outside, it’ll work better there.”

Stiles gave their surroundings a cursory glance but they were alone.There were distant sounds of traffic from another street but nothing around them.The overgrown trees around the edges of the lot gave them a modicum of privacy as well.

Stiles joined Laura on her side of the car.“Close your eyes.”

Laura closed them and covered them with a hand.“This better wow me, Stilinski.”

“If this works you will be very wowed.”

Stiles reached for a newer spell he had stitched into his jeans on the left pocket.He’d only tried it out at home so far.It was still in the early stages and he wasn’t quite happy with it yet, but it had a dramatic potential to it.

Stiles activated the spell.

“Open your eyes.”

Laura did and visibly startled.Stiles held his breath as she reached out with her hand and sniffed the air.

“I can’t see, smell, or hear you at all.Where—“

“Still here.”

She jumped and nearly poked his eye out.He stepped backward and she zeroed in on the gravel crunching under his feet.

“I didn’t think magic could make you disappear so completely,” she said, eyes wide with awe.“I can’t even hear your heartbeat.”

Stiles grinned, triumphant.

“That’s not even the best part.Stand still and look at your reflection in the window, okay?”

Laura turned around.Stiles took her hand.To her surprise, she disappeared from sight, too.

“How did you do this?”

Just as she finished speaking the spell fizzled out and went dead.They popped back into sight between blinks.

“I tinkered with it, really.It’s a complicated piece, I’m still working on the time delay function.It only lasts about five minutes for me.With another person or object it burns out faster.I’m hoping I can extend that for longer.I’m sure it’ll come in handy for something someday.”

After the whole thing with Nathan seeing him in the mirror, Stiles had devoted his free time to tackling that particular failing in his invisibility spell.He’d practiced with it late at night when everyone was asleep, fiddling with the construction and workings bit by bit to stave off madness as well as distract himself from how much everything sucked.

Laura shook her head and looked at Stiles like she was seeing something new or different in him.He fidgeted under her gaze until she snorted.“I’m officially wowed, Stilinski.You’ve got some serious talent.”

Stiles blushed clear up to his ears.

They got back in the car and Laura pulled out onto the road.But instead of going back she headed downtown and pulled into line for the ice cream parlor.A few minutes later she handed him a mint chocolate chip cone.

“Here.”

“What’s the apology ice cream for?”

“For _MMMBop_.I admit that was a bit too far.”Laura gave him a sheepish shrug and ate her sundae.

Stiles savored his ice cream cone and licked the remnants off his fingers.

“Apology accepted.”

Laura smirked like she’d just won something she’d been angling for.Stiles had no idea what that might even be.She definitely had some sort of agenda but Stiles had a gut feeling it wasn’t anything he had to worry about.At least not like he’d worry about most things.He had a feeling he had passed some kind of test.

Only time would tell what he’d even been quizzed on.

~

For the first stretch of time in too long to contemplate, Stiles slept without many nightmares.They never completely went away but they didn’t pull him under and keep him thralled until he woke with a choked scream in the back of his throat that night either. 

Stiles woke up with the dawn and appreciated the fact that he wasn’t soaked in sweat and that his stomach wasn’t churning.It felt like the calm after a horrible storm, that moment where the world began to remember what it was to breathe.

Stiles got up and went downstairs.Dad was still at home, puttering around the kitchen making coffee and something to eat before leaving for his shift.

“Hey, kiddo.You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Stiles said and it was nice to actually mean it. 

Dad must have noticed something in his voice.He tilted his head with an assessing look and said, “Want a cup?”

So Stiles made a cup and they sat at the table and had eggs and toast.They talked some, mostly about plans for the day since Stiles was officially not grounded, but Dad also had some news.

“I was going to tell both of you tonight when I got back, but I might as well tell you now.Dan is stepping down as sheriff soon and he’s appointed me to act in his stead until elections open up.”

Stiles grinned.“That’s awesome, Dad.I happen to know you make a great sheriff.”

Dad smiled, slightly embarrassed.“Thanks, kiddo.Anyway, I’m going to be in closed door meetings all day with Dan, the mayor, and commissioners.”

“But you’ll be home for dinner?”

“Yeah, I should be.”

“Good, I’ll make something celebratory.”

“That would be nice.Try to keep an eye on Mini-You while I’m gone, okay?I know you two are still on the outs but even though Scott’ll end up here I don’t want them left to their own devices.”

“Yeah, okay, pops.”

Dad squeezed his shoulder.“See you for dinner.”

Stiles finished his cup and washed the dishes.After he finished up he had an idea, so he called the McCall house.

“Hello?” Scott answered.

“Hey, dude.You coming over today?”

“Oh, yeah, if it’s okay.”Scott said, and Stiles didn’t have to imagine the pleased puppy look Scott was probably sporting. 

“Yeah, man.Is your mom home?”

“She’s got work tonight so she’s asleep.”

“Well, write her a note and stick it on the fridge.I’ll get Mini-Me and come by for you.”

Scott paused.“Are you guys talking yet?”

“No, not yet.”

Scott sighed.“I can't believe how stubborn you both are.”

“It can be a curse,” Stiles agreed.“Look,I’m gonna try to make it better.We’ll go to the grocery store and I’ll pick some stuff up and bring it back here.If I fail again at least you two can play video games all day.”

Scott was frowning at him.Stiles couldn’t see it but he could feel it.Scott had a very distinctive frown that could transcend space and time, so detecting it over the phone was child’s play.It was disappointment mixed with sadness and mild judgement that quietly conveyed Stiles was capable of doing better.

“Hey, come on, I’m trying, okay?I’ll get through to him somehow.It just might take a while.”

“Our fights never last this long.”

Stiles blew out a breath and shook his head.“Of course not.That’s because it’s you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re special, Scotty.You’re one of the people we care about the most, it’s hard to stay mad at you.”

Even when he deserved it.

Scott sighed.“You guys are so difficult.”The frown was still there but notes of fondness had crept in.

“That’s because we run on Adderall and spite.Don’t forget to leave your mom a note.”

“Is he even up yet?” Scott asked, ignoring that completely.

“Nope, but he will be.”

Stiles felt Scott roll his eyes.

“You’re off to a _great_ start.Bye.”Scott hung up before Stiles could retort.

“You’re not supposed to be the sarcastic one,” Stiles said to dead air.

Stiles got dressed and went into Mini-Stiles’s room.True to fashion, Mini-Stiles was asleep.He sprawled on top of the covers in a twisted position that made Stiles wince.He had used to wake up in all sorts of pretzels positions when he was younger.Sometimes it was funny to see how many different ones he could manage.Now the only thing he got when he woke up wrong was aching pain in all his joints that never quite went away.

Stiles shook that away and found his younger self’s clothing and dumped them on his head.

“Come on, dude.Time to wake up.”

Mini-Stiles startled and flailed in all directions at once.Squinting around the room, he said, “What’s going on?”

“Get dressed.We’re gonna go pick up Scott.”

“What’s wrong with Scott?”

“It’s Sunday.”

Mini-Stiles fish-mouthed as he tried to process that.Stiles left and shouted, “If you’re not downstairs in five minutes I’m leaving without you.”

Stiles barely made it to the stairs before he heard a thump, a curse, and Mini-Stiles struggling into his clothes. 

Scott was probably right about it being a great start but, well.

It was satisfying.

Stiles was by the door twirling his house keys by the time Mini-Stiles finally made it down.He scowled up at Stiles and rubbed at his eyes. 

“It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

“Scott’s up.”

“Scott’s always up early.”

The McCall’s only lived a few blocks over so it wasn’t a bad walk.Mini-Stiles dragged his feet for a while until he realized Stiles wasn’t going to slow down or wait for him.

“We are not morning people,” Mini-Stiles groused, as if betrayed.

Stiles elected not to answer.They came upon Scott’s house soon enough and Scotty was on the porch waiting.His face lit up like a surprised puppy and he sprinted down the walk to meet them.“Hey, guys!”

“Did you leave your mom a note?”

“Yeah, duh, you don’t have to keep reminding me,” Scott said.

Stiles held up his hands in mock surrender.“Fine, but I better not get chewed out later if you didn’t.”

“God, you are such a _drag_ ,” Mini-Stiles said.

Stiles contemplated smacking his younger self’s head but, tempting though it was, it would be counterproductive to the whole outing. 

Damn it.

“This way,” Stiles called instead when Mini-Stiles turned to head back home.

“Oh my god, where are we going now?”

“The store.If you quit complaining I’ll let you get something forbidden.”

Mini-Stiles eyed him with suspicion.“Are you bribing me?”

“Is it working?”

Mini-Stiles didn’t answer but he did keep any remarks to himself so it was a step in the right direction.At the store the boys peeled off to roam the snack aisle.

“Keep it under five dollars,” Stiles called.Neither of them answered so he snagged a cart and ticked off the mental list he’d made.Soup for lunch and a breakfast casserole for dinner led him up and down almost every aisle for the ingredients.

He’d gotten most of them when he turned down the dairy aisle to get the eggs and sausage and nearly collided with another customer.

“Oh, dude, sorry about that, I didn’t see y—“

Brunski, the serial killer orderly from Eichen House scowled back at Stiles, bleary-eyed under the bright lights.Stiles scrambled back, heart in his throat.

“Watch it,” Brunski grumbled and went on towards the cereal.

Stiles pulled back into his aisle and pressed a hand to his mouth and very quietly tried not to freak the hell out.He couldn’t decide if he wanted to scream or throw up.Stiles hadn’t thought about Brunski or the horrible things he’d done in a long time.It probably said something sad about his psyche that the serial killer who nearly offed him and Lydia ranked depressingly low on the pile of nightmare traumas.

Seeing him face to face put him right back in Eichen, but Stiles fought to keep himself in the present.He counted his fingers and read the ingredients list off the nearest thing on the shelf. 

He was never buying that brand of cookies again.He couldn’t even pronounce half the things in it.

When he could function a bit more he found the boys still in the candy section debating over chocolate versus sour gummy worms.Stiles plastered a smile on and tried not to think that he could feel his heart hammering away at his ribs as if to break them.

“Ready?”

They settled the debate with a round of rock, paper, scissors and took the large bag of gummy worms.

Stiles checked out and paid with half a mind on it.He kept scanning around to track Brunski.Paranoia and anxiety met under his skin and went nuts together, dialing all his senses up to eleven.It didn’t stop once they were out of the store, either.He kept on guard the entire way home.Once, he thought he saw a car following them but then it disappeared.

By the time they got home it was all Stiles could do to act normal while the boys booted up the game system and threw gummy worms for each other to catch.

Stiles concentrated on his breathing as he put the groceries away and took extra care getting what he needed for soup.Soup and sandwiches, he decided.That would be a good lunch.

Brunski might be a serial killer here, too.The thought made him pause as he opened a can of soup.Brunski could still be working his way through the supernatural creatures in the closed unit.Making murders look like suicides, torturing those poor souls who had nowhere to go, no way to fight back.

Stiles had to tell Dad.But first he needed to write up everything he could remember, all the details, put it into some form that made sense so Dad could start checking into it.Stiles itched to do that himself but he’d promised and, honestly, the thought of going up against that psychotic giant alone was more than daunting.

Maybe with Derek.Definitely if he had Laura.

But no.He had to stop thinking that way.He wasn’t going up against Brunski alone or with anyone, he was supposed to tell Dad.He just needed to write it out first.

Stiles was so deep in his thoughts that he never heard anything until someone yanked on his arm.He startled and the soup can dropped.It landed on the floor and sprayed up into the air.Stiles flinched as red splattered everything in all directions.

It was tomato soup.Not blood.Not blood, not blood.

It dripped down his face.Down the cabinets and the wall and Mini-Stiles.Red clung to his face and shirt and hair and it was just soup, not from a bullet, not from claws.

Stiles reached up and felt his own face.It was soup, it smelled like tomato, not warm iron.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Mini-Stiles yelled.“I swear, half the time you’re a stupid robot and the rest you’re just an asshole.”

“What’s going on?” Scott called as he wandered in.His eyebrows shot up as he took in the mess.

“Not-Tall-Enough went and threw soup everywhere like a spaz.”

“Wow, it’s even on the ceiling,” Scott said, impressed.

“Was this your grand plan?Drag us out at the buttcrack of dawn and come back and throw food everywhere to get back at me?” Mini-Stiles grabbed a towel and scrubbed at his shirt.“Because that’s pretty lame as far as pranks go and it wasn’t even funny.”

“It’s in your hair,” Scott offered.

“Ugh!”

Stiles heard all of this and took it in but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Mini-Stiles, covered in soup (not blood, _not blood_ ).It was hard to breathe and it was stupid, he knew it wasn’t real.

“Why are you just standing there?”Mini-Stiles threw the towel at him.

Stiles fumbled for it too late and it fell to the floor.Mini-Stiles sneered at that.

“I can’t believe I ever thought you were cool.You’re just pathetic.”

Something in Stiles pulled taut and snapped.

“Would you shut the fuck up for once?”Mini-Stiles flinched back in surprise.Stiles pushed off the counter and got into his space.“I’m sorry you’re mad at me.I’m sorry I’m a bit too fucked up to seem cool anymore.At least you don’t have to worry about becoming as fucked up as me, so why don’t you just be happy with that and leave me the hell alone from now on?”

Stiles didn’t remember walking away but then he was out the door and down the street and the awful guilt and rage building up in his stomach wouldn’t let him turn back around.So he walked without seeing where he was going.He trusted his feet to take him away and they did.

But the farther away he got the worse he felt.He shouldn’t have said that.Damn it, he was always doing the wrong thing when it came to his younger self.He’d even forgotten the stupid ice cream at the store because of Brunski and his subsequent freak out.

Probably just as well, he thought.Apology ice cream wouldn’t be enough to fix what he just did on top of everything else that was or might be his fault.Why did he ever think it would be a good idea to cozy up with Dad and Mini-Stiles in this world?Ignoring the fact that it hadn’t been his choice, he should have known better than to let it get this far.Hadn’t he already proved he was poison to the people around him?The quickest way for Stiles to ruin someone was to love them. 

Part of Stiles knew these thoughts were bullshit.Just his mind spiraling down and blowing everything out of proportion.The rest of him didn’t care.It felt true and it was a familiar ache in his gut that was easier to understand than anything else might have been.

Stiles wished he could stop fucking up.Could stop being who he was. 

A car horn jarred him out of his thoughts and he flinched away from the road.The car sped on and then it was empty again.He blinked at his surroundings and realized he’d gone farther than he intended to.He was practically at the loft, on the opposite side of town from home.How long had he been walking?

Stiles sighed and scrubbed at his face.Dried tomato soup flaked off.He needed a shower.He wanted to crawl back into bed, just pull the covers up until the day didn’t exist anymore.

Something crunched on the gravel behind him.Stiles turned and the last thing he saw was a baseball bat coming at his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you'll notice this fix now has a final chapter count. I have all but the last chapter completely finished, so I'll be updating chapters every day or every other day. The last chapter should be done and ready to post by Sunday, tentatively. This has been a journey, y'all, I'm so excited to get it all up for you guys to read.


	7. Rule of the Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pack looks after its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be posted yesterday but I had to tweak something during final edits and that caused me to have to tweak several more things and before I knew it the thread I pulled unravelled the whole original ending like a cheap sweater and I had to re-write it. But, only a day late. That’s not too bad, right?
> 
> Trigger warnings in this chapter for anxiety and panic, aftermath of violence, and mild disassociation. And feels. So many feels.

Stiles came to awareness in the loft. He was crouched down in the bathroom, one hand over his head and the other gripping the edge of the sink. His heart beat a frantic tempo in his chest. He was scared. Terrified. But he didn’t know why.

The pieces came back slowly.The fight with Mini-Stiles.Frustration and loneliness.Going for a walk.

And someone hit him. 

Stiles's fingers prodded along his head. He hissed as they came into contact with a huge lump high on his forehead.

Someone had hit him with a baseball bat. 

Everything after the hit was a hazy blur. Stiles had scrapes on his knuckles and a bruise blooming tight and hot on his cheek. He had fought back but couldn’t remember any faces.How many of them were there?

He ran a check of his spells.Two of them were drained.One of his defensive spells and his quick-foot spell.  He had hit back and ran.

It took a while to convince his body to uncurl from where he had crouched on the floor. All of his joints ached from holding the position for who knew how long. Stiles fished his cell phone out of his pocket. It wasn't broken, a miracle. When had he left the house?It had been mid-morning, right?It was now almost one in the afternoon.

He dialed Dad's number but it went straight to voicemail. Panic ripped through Stiles before he remembered the meeting. Dad was getting ready to take over for the sheriff.Closed door meetings, all day.

Stiles dialed the next number.

"Selena! How's it shaking?" Shawn Hale picked up on the second ring.

"Sh-Shawn?" Stiles hated how his voice cracked.

"Stiles? You okay?” All playfulness dropped from his voice.

"I need-- Can you pick me up?"

"Where are you?"

"The loft."

"Are you okay?" Stiles heard a set of keys jingle and the squeak of an office chair as Shawn pushed it away from the desk.

Stiles closed his eyes and willed himself not to cry. Every instinct screamed at him not to move or breathe because the hunters would come back, but he wasn't there. _He wasn't there._

"Mostly? Please, come get me."

"On my way. Is anyone there with you?"

Stiles paused to listen but the wards were all intact.Except for a steady dripping noise somewhere it was silent. "No, it's just me."

"Do not move, I will be there in five minutes."

Shawn hung up and Stiles listened to the dial tone until he remembered to put the phone away. Then he did exactly as he was told. He didn't move. Just stared out of the bathroom into the darkened loft and told himself to breathe. Some part of his mind told him it would be okay to venture out and meet Shawn downstairs but the rest of him screamed that if he made a sound someone would come and hurt him worse.

He was still standing there when he heard someone ascend the stairs.

"Stiles?" 

Shawn's flashlight beam cut through the dark, sweeping back and forth in front of him, his gun drawn underneath.

"H-here."

The flashlight jerked toward him and the light hit Stiles’s face.

"Holy shit, kid, what happened?"

Shawn holstered his gun and then he was up in his space like a werewolf, flashlight held high to assess the damage.

"I think I got jumped."

"Where?" Shawn's fingers held Stile's chin and tilted his head one way and then the other.

“I don’t remember.I was just walking, had to cool off.” Stiles lifted his hands. "I fought back."

"I know you did, kiddo," Shawn assured him. "Follow my finger real quick, okay?" He moved his pointer finger in front of Stiles's face. "Come on, let's run you by the hospital and get that goose egg checked out."

Stiles groaned. He'd hoped to not see the inside of that place for a while.

"I know, but you know we gotta. Head injuries are nothing to mess with."

It took Shawn over thirty minutes to coax Stiles downstairs and into the cruiser. His body just didn't want to leave the loft. It was safe and warded, his body argued. Outside wasn't. By the time they got downstairs Stiles was sobbing in frustration at himself which made his head hurt worse and his panic would not stop screaming.

"It's alright. We're going at your pace." 

Shawn didn't complain or hurry him. Stiles couldn't decide if he was relieved or not. He finally got settled in the passenger seat of the cruiser and curled in on himself.It was too much space, too bright.He closed his eyes against it.

Melissa arrived at the hospital to meet them, Shawn having called and woken her on the way, and Stiles was in an exam room before he knew it.

"Oh, sweetie, that's gotta smart." Melissa was as gentle as she could be while cleaning up his face and checking the rest of his head. 

“I’m sorry, he shouldn’t have called you,” Stiles muttered.“You should still be sleeping.”

Stiles hadn’t realized that’s what happened until Shawn was off the phone with Melissa, too late for him to object.

“I’ll be fine, kid, I’m happy to help, though I would prefer you didn’t get hurt.Unless you’d be more comfortable with someone else doing the exam?”

“No,” Stiles answered, probably a bit too quickly.

Stiles felt a bit better now than he had since he came around in the loft.He wasn’t comfortable with the hospital itself, too much had happened there, but having Melissa poke and prod at him over an injury was normal enough that his body agreed this was a safe place.Outside of Dad she was probably the safest person for him to be with.

Shawn stayed outside the room during all of this.Stiles heard him speaking low, talking to someone, but he couldn’t see who. 

“Hey, talk to me, kiddo,” Melissa said as she dabbed at the cut above his eye.

“I’m okay,” he said.“Head hurts but other than that there’s nothing wrong.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

Stiles bit his lip.“No,” he admitted.“There’s a gap between when I got hit and when I woke up.”

Melissa nodded and moved around to check the rest of his head.When she came back around she said, “What’s all over your clothes?”

Stiles looked down and picked at his shirt.For a stark moment he had no idea.It was just blank in his mind.Then he breathed out and said, “It’s just soup.”

Melissa watched him for a moment.“Given that you can’t remember if you were hit anywhere else let’s just do a check to be on the safe side.Go ahead and take your shirt off for me.I’ll make this as quick as I can.”

Melissa pulled the curtain by the bed closed to give him some privacy.Stiles went to pull his shirt off and hesitated.It wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before.He knew she’d taken care of him after the omega.It still sucked, though.Stiles grit his teeth and took the shirt off.The cold air ran a shiver down his spine.

Melissa, true to her word, made the examination as quick and painless as she could.She never flinched away from his scars or tattoos, never looked at him with pity.It was just the right mixture of professional nurse and caring mother.She explained what she did as she was doing it like she was explaining doing the dishes or going out to get the mail.She telegraphed all her movements so he knew where she was at and where she was going.

After she determined he didn’t have any other pressing injuries she patched up his knuckles and patted his knee.

“You have a light concussion but you’re going to be alright.Take a normal dose of Tylenol for the headache and put some ice on that bump.Then take it easy, okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be jumping around or anything for a while,” he said.

Melissa smiled.“That would be best.Go ahead and get dressed, I’m going to update Deputy Hale and then we’ll get you out of here.”

Melissa squeezed his hand and Stiles closed his eyes after she left.He gave himself a moment to feel deeply shitty, pathetic, and scared.Then he straightened up, pushed it down, and got dressed.

Stiles expected Shawn to drop him off at home but they went back to the station. His appearance caught everyone's attention as they made their way through the station but Shawn waved them off and they went to Dad's office.Shawn left for a minute and then came back.

“Here.” Shawn handed Stiles some clothes. “I raided your dad’s locker. Go get changed, it’ll make you feel better.”

Stiles did feel better once he got out of his jeans and torn shirt. It felt weird, though, being in sweats and an oversized hoodie in the middle of the station. Shawn put his other clothes in a large evidence bag. Before Stiles could begin to process how that made him feel, Shawn waved him over to his Dad’s office chair, grabbed a pen, and opened his notepad.

"Can you walk me through what happened?"

Stiles tried. The problem was the attack came out of nowhere.He held the ice pack against his head.His memory shorted out right after the blow and nothing was there until he came to at the loft.

“Do you remember why you left the house in the first place?”

Stiles grimaced.“Had a fight with Mini-Me.He’s been angry ever since we came back from the cabin.”

“Yeah, your dad mentioned that.He hasn’t really talked about why?”

“Sort of but not really, he just sulks at the house and screams around the issue.He hasn’t punched me again, at least, so silver lining.”Then Stiles’s brain backtracked.“Oh, shit, him and Scott are there alone.We need to go check on them—“

Shawn stopped Stiles from getting up.

“Already took care of it.I called Laura as soon as I hung up with you.She’s been with them since I got you at the loft.”

Stiles sank back with a sigh.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“Siblings fight, Stiles.Sometimes you need to get away to clear your head, it’s normal.”

“But we’re not siblings.We’re different versions of the same person and right now it really, really sucks.”

Stiles took a few deep breaths and willed himself not to cry again. He couldn't do anything right for long but he was determined not be a damn baby for a second time in the same day.

“Honestly, I’m amazed it took this long for you two to even have a fight.I grew up with five siblings and a lot of cousins running around and sometimes it was more like living in the Thunderdome.”

Stiles snorted despite himself.“I figured your mom would have put a stop to that.”

“Oh, she did if it happened within earshot.But we had the entire preserve to run wild in.You want to talk bad fights?You should have seen the battles Laura and our cousin Rachel waged on all the boys because one of them found their diaries and wouldn’t fess up where he hid them.”

Stiles blinked and felt his mouth go dry.

“And no one died?”

Shawn nodded, eyes comically wide.“It came close.But, at the end of the day, we were still family.So are you guys.Just give it time but keep showing up.He’ll come around." Shawn flashed him a grin. He clicked the pen in his hand and cleared his throat. "Back to the incident.Do you know why you were walking in that particular area?”

Stiles shrugged.“I just took off walking.I didn’t think about it, I just went with my feet.Familiar ground, I guess.I don’t understand why I can’t remember anything after that,” Stiles muttered.

“The details may come trickling back in the next few days or weeks.You’ve already been through a lot and getting hit in the head doesn't help. Your brain may need some time to heal, or it could just be protecting you."

“It can’t protect me if I can’t remember what happened.”It also couldn’t assure Dad that Stiles was fine and didn’t need to be bubble wrapped and locked in the house, either.On that thought Stiles asked, “Have you told my Dad yet?”

Shawn shook his head.“He’s still in meetings.If you had been hurt worse, enough to keep you at the hospital, I would have sent someone to alert him.As it is, we’re going to get a start on investigating this and see if we can’t find the asshole or assholes responsible.”

“They completely got the drop on me.”

Now that he was calmer he was disgusted and embarrassed at himself.Stiles used to be the thing that went bump in the night and scared criminals in this town for months.In the space of a single headshot he’d been knocked back down into a scared little kid.

"Hey." Shawn waited for Stiles to meet his eyes. "They surprised you but you got away. And you did some damage on your way out, judging by your hands. I'm impressed, considering how hard they hit you. Just goes to prove you got your dad's thick skull."

Stiles groaned. "He’s gonna freak out so bad.”

"He won't be mad at you, Stiles.”

"No, but he's gonna _freak out_ and he’s only just recently stopped looking at me like a—a.”Stiles couldn’t think of the right word so he just gestured to all of himself. 

Shawn raised his eyebrow. "Can you blame him?"

Stiles huffed. "No. I just... After the whole thing at the cabin and I’ve been trying really hard to uphold my end of things, I…I know there’s still a lot wrong with me but lately he’s been looking at me like I might be almost okay sometimes.I don’t want that to stop.”

Shawn’s face softened with sympathy. "Don't stress over it.He's your dad. It's his job to worry over you, and freak out when you get hurt. Just like you do over him."

"Yeah."

He must have looked thoroughly pathetic because Shawn gave him a handful of his emergency candy stash while he went to Deputy Little and started giving out information so they could investigate Stiles's attack. 

Stiles ignored the whole thing. He didn't want to see the looks of pity directed his way so he concentrated on unwrapping the tiny chocolates and folding the wrappers into inappropriate shapes to leave in Shawn’s desk. Stiles figured Shawn would go out with them to run down leads but he came back to the office and handed Stiles a stack of reports.

"I know you've already figured out our passwords. You might as well make yourself useful and do some data entry while we wait.”

Stiles poked at the files. “How did you know?”

It had been one of the first things Stiles did, other than make copies of all the keys and keycards again.Ingrained habit.Dad knew because it was one of the many honesty points Stiles had had to share with him while at the cabin.Stiles figured Dad would have changed all the passwords after they came back.He’d already taken all the key copies away from him.

“You just admitted it.”Shawn grinned.

Stiles scowled.

"Doesn't this fall under child labor?"

"You could always stare at the wall for the rest of the afternoon," Shawn shrugged, unbothered.

Stiles held out for almost a minute before he unlocked his Dad's computer.The password was still the same. Shawn's sneaky grin did not escape his notice.

~

Dad arrived a couple hours later. Stiles had finished the illegal child labor and moved on to annoying Shawn for giving him files of old, _boring_ cases instead of active ones. He was currently flicking rubber bands across the desk to mess up Shawn's typing. Shawn was infuriatingly blase about it. He ignored the ones that hit his chest or arms and removed the ones that landed on his keyboard all without looking up, telling Stiles to stop, or threatening him. Given that he’d had been doing it for over forty-five minutes Stiles was thinking he would have to seriously up his game.

That was a first in his long and dedicated career of being annoying.He was also almost out of rubber bands.

Stiles heard Dad before he saw him and his next rubber band flew wide with a startled _twing_ into the fake office plant. Stiles swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat and clenched his hands.

"Stay here," Shawn said and intercepted Dad before he got to the office.

Stiles lowered his eyes and stretched and pulled on a rubber band over and over. Shawn spoke to his dad in a low, even tone for a few minutes starting off with, _first, you need to know that Stiles is okay, but there was an incident…_

Shawn’s voice was lost in the sharp ring of someone’s phone. Then--

"WHAT."

Stiles winced at his Dad's bellow. Two seconds later Dad practically teleported into the office. 

"Hey, Dad--"

Then he was hauled into a fierce hug. Which was nice. Stiles could admit the abundance of hugs since he'd come home was awesome and he loved each one. Especially when they were just regular hugs prompted by nothing dire. 

Mini-Stiles got just as many, so it was a thing this Dad did. Lots and lots of casual affection. Not that Stiles’s Dad hadn’t. It was just, well. His Dad had worked a lot and Stiles had usually rebuffed it on the grounds of acceptable manliness bullshit and... Stiles shut that line of thought down and hugged back.

"I'm really okay," he mumbled into Dad's shoulder.

When Dad pulled away to inspect the damage Shawn was leaning in the office doorway.

"Diaz called in a bit ago. She's running down a lead on a potential witness.”

Dad pursed his lips like he wanted to keep yelling. “Call me as soon as you have something."

"You know I will."

Dad kept his arm around Stiles’s shoulder like Stiles might run off at his first chance into someone else’s baseball bat. Stiles bit his tongue, though. Dad would be hovering for a good while thanks to this. So would the rest of the department if the way they were all pretending to be busy but close enough to eavesdrop said anything.

Dad steered him toward the door. He grasped Shawn’s arm as they passed.

"Thank you for taking care of him.”

Shawn inclined his head.“Pack looks after their own.”He glanced briefly at Stiles and smiled.“Besides, I’ve got him figured out now.”

“Oh?”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at Shawn.

“He lives up to his catty nickname. Wave something shiny in front of him and wait, he’ll pounce and pretty much entertains himself. It’s adorable.” Shawn winked at Stiles.

Stile’s jaw dropped.

That _bastard_.

Dad huffed with a reluctant twitch that could have been a small smile.

“This means war, Hale,” Stiles said, aware he didn’t appear threatening at all still tucked under Dad’s arm and squished to his side. After having seen Stiles flip out at the loft and ugly cry all afternoon Shawn would never take him serious again.

Shawn grinned. “Bring it, Selena.”

Dad steered Stiles out of the station before he could sputter out a comeback or a threat or-- 

Fucking Shawn.

Once they got in the car Dad turned to Stiles to talk but Stiles blurted out first, “I didn’t go looking for this, I swear.”

Dad’s heart broke all over his face and that was even worse so Stiles did what he did best and surged forward with information vomit.

“I just went out to clear my head because we’d been fighting.Not physically fighting, just words.There was soup everywhere and Mini-Me was just being how he has been and I went for a walk.I wasn’t going anywhere in particular but I ended up by the loft and someone jumped me.I wasn’t—I wasn’t going back on my word, I swear, I just needed some air.”

“Hey, it’s alright, I believe you.”Dad squeezed his shoulder.

“Please don’t freak out about this.”

Dad raised both his eyebrows.“I think you’ve got that covered for both of us at the moment.”

Stiles opened his mouth and the closed it.

“Oh.Probably.”

Dad rubbed a circle with his thumb on Stiles’s shoulder for a minute while he calmed down.“I’m sorry that this happened to you, but we’re going to find who did it.Okay?”

“I know.”The entire stint at the cabin had shown Stiles exactly how dedicated Dad was to rooting out the truth.Whoever was responsible didn’t stand a chance.“I just hate that I’m a case again.”

Stiles refused to say the V-word.

Dad studied him for a long, awkward moment.

“That’s not how I see you.”

Stiles grew uncomfortable under Dad’s scrutiny and shrank down in the seat. 

“Stiles, horrible things have happened to you in your life and you have been victimized.But that doesn’t make you weak.You’re a survivor.You’re strong and resourceful.I’m amazed at you everyday.”

Stiles swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat.“Then why?Why do you look at me sometimes like—like—“

“Like I’m worried?”

“Like I’m broken.”

Dad let out a sharp exhale.“You’re not broken, kiddo.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“Hey,” Dad said, voice sharp.“You’re not.You’ve taken on damage and you’re still healing from it in a multitude of ways.But you’re not broken.You’re here and you’re trying every day, even when it’s hard.That’s not broken and it never will be.”

Stiles scrubbed at his eyes and looked away.

“I look at you the way I do because the damage needs care.You’re still learning about what you need that way, never mind how to ask for it or tell me.So, yes.I’m going to be looking close at you.Assessing.Asking questions.Worrying.Part of my job, remember?”

“I remember,” Stiles said.It came out in a whisper.

“Good.I’ll remind you as many times as you need to hear it.”Dad squeezed his shoulder.“I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Stiles chewed on his lower lip while Dad started the cruiser.Before he could shift out of park Stiles said, “I wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Okay.”

Dad let the engine run and waited.Stiles inhaled deep and told him about coming to in the loft.

“It wasn’t the cage but it felt like it.Like I was still there.I kept waiting for one of the hunters to come even though I knew I was safe in the loft.It took so long to even leave the building.I cried in front of Shawn.”

“I’ve cried in front of Shawn, too, Stiles.A few times.”

“Really?”Stiles didn’t disbelieve him, but he’d only seen his Dad cry a handful times in the space of his entire life.Not even enough times to count on one hand and use all the fingers.

“Yep,” Dad admitted easily.“The great thing about Shawn is that he doesn’t hold with outdated macho views on things like that.If he ever did I’m sure the plethora of strong and independent women in his pack set him straight very quick.”

Stiles snorted.He couldn’t see Laura standing for any of that at all.

“You know he sees you as a little brother, don’t you?”

Stiles finally looked up, puzzled.

“Because I’m Derek’s friend?”

“I wasn’t the only one working overtime on leads to find you when you were missing.Half the time I had to make him go home.He’s seen a lot of people, young and older, come into the pack from rough backgrounds. It's part of why he decided to become a deputy. It was easy for him to basically adopt you even before we knew you were mine.Pack is family and he takes family seriously.”

“And we’re pack now.”That was still a strange concept.He still hadn’t even met anyone from the pack outside Derek, Laura, or Shawn.

“Exactly. And he’s never going to turn his back on you.He’ll tease you mercilessly just like he does Derek and Laura and all his other family members but not about the stuff that matters.Not about your trauma.He will never hold that against you in any form.”

Stiles didn’t know how to believe that.Dad’s partners had always been important to him.Bereft of any extended family members, Dad’s partners had taken on the role of uncles or aunts.Dad’s first partner, Jake Ivy, had been the coolest person Stiles had ever met when he was little and he grew up actually calling him Uncle Jake. 

Jake never did look at Stiles the same after the whole kidnapping Jackson incident.Especially when it lost Dad his job.Even after Dad got it back Jake pulled away and eventually moved, transferring to another county.Stiles hadn’t blamed him but it had still hurt and he knew it had hurt his Dad.

“I didn’t want to lose his respect, I guess.” 

He was still trying to figure Shawn out.They were too close in age for Stiles to look at him like an uncle. And Stiles was not brother material, as his younger self was constantly proving.He liked how sarcastic Shawn could be, though, but it was weird.With Shawn, Stiles had first been a case.Well, two cases.Missing kid and masked vigilante.That had to color Shawn’s opinion of Stiles in some way but Stiles hadn’t figured out what way yet.

Not to mention dragging Derek, his actual little brother, into a non-sanctioned and amateur drug investigation.  If anything _that_ should have lost him any shred of whatever protective or nice feelings Shawn had towards Stiles.

So he had reverted back to childish antics and teasing and Shawn had returned those. And Stiles kept waiting.For the other shoe to drop.For the disappointment and irritation to set it.It always did.And today should have dropped all the damn shoes.Stiles had already proven he could run circles around humans with ill intentions but, like with everything else, he’d gotten stupid and someone else had had to come and clean up his mess.

Stiles should have been able to take care of himself like he had before.

“Kid, the only way you’re going to lose his respect at this point is if you decide to support the Yankees.And even then I’m sure he’d give you a pass when he was done bitching about it.”

Stiles had no idea what to do with that information and his head was starting to throb again so he filed it away to examine later.

~

Laura and Derek were waiting for them at home.Laura leapt up from the couch and hugged Stiles before he was fully in the door.Stiles boggled at the sudden onslaught and awkwardly patted her back. Derek hovered behind her, expression worried shot through with relief.

"You look like a drunk trash panda," she said, eyeing the impressive goose egg on his forehead, lips pursed thin.

"Thanks, the under eye baggage is all natural."

Laura handed him off to Derek who, true to werewolf form, gently manhandled Stiles onto the couch and gave him another ice pack before taking up residence beside Stiles.A flash of movement from the right drew his eye.Mini-Stiles hovered by the stairs, his hands twitching nervously with his hoodie string.Scott was beside him, looking between Mini-Stiles and everyone in the living room, unsure of what to do.

“Hey.Sorry I didn’t come back.I, uh.Kinda got held up.”

The awkward attempt at a joke fell flat on its ass between them.Mini-Stiles’s face closed off.Then he dashed up the stairs and into his room.Stiles winced.He was not finding the right words at all lately.

Scott hesitated, torn between following Mini-Stiles and letting him be for a while.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go talk to him,” Laura said.She motioned Scott to to the couch.“You should sit right here and keep him company.”Then she pointed a finger at Stiles.“If you move Derek has permission to sit on you.”

Then she was gone upstairs and Stiles was left confused and red in the face for reasons he was definitely not going to examine at that moment.

“Your sister is incredibly bossy.”

Derek shrugged, unbothered.“Future alphas usually are.”

Dad coughed to cover up a snigger and divested himself of his jacket.“I’m going to order some pizza.Derek, you and Laura want to stay for dinner?”

“If that’s all right.”

“I’m sure Stiles would appreciate the company.”

Das left before Stiles could even answer for himself, but then Derek gave him the remote and, okay.Stiles was definitely going to stay on the couch and it was fine that Derek and Laura were there.Well, at least Derek.He hadn’t been bossy at all.

Though he might if Stiles tried to get up.Derek was thoroughly under Laura’s thumb still.

Stiles flipped the TV on and went through the channels until he found some reruns of Doctor Who.Derek made a small, pleased noise in the back of his throat so they watched Eleven, Rory, and Amy take on the Weeping Angels in Manhattan. It was pretty nice, all things considered. Derek was a veritable space heater next to him and pressed his leg flush up against Stiles's that was undemanding but grounding. 

And he didn't ask any questions. 

Derek got up between commercials to get them some water. After he left Scott poked at Stiles's leg. Stiles poked him back.

“Are you really okay?” Scott whispered, though Derek probably heard every word.

Stiles gave him a small smile.“I’m fine, dude.Just got my bell rung.”

Scott eyed the goose egg with a pained wince.

“And before?” Scott bit his lip with a guilty glance at Stiles's Dad, who was in his office on the phone. Probably getting an update from Shawn or one of the other deputies if the hushed tone was anything to go by.

Stiles shook his head and looked away.“Just bad memories.”Stiles couldn’t even remember what he’d been thinking about.It wasn’t blank, just blurry.Not the fight with Mini-Stiles, though, the words were still clear and sharp as knives.

Scott looked even more troubled by that answer.Stiles put an arm around him and Scott leaned into his side.It was incredibly wrong for Scott to be so much smaller.But he was a comforting weight against Stiles.Still familiar for all his differences.

Laura came back down with Mini-Stiles.He didn’t say anything, would barely even look at Stiles in the face, but he took Derek’s spot and shoved his feet under Stiles’s thigh and stared at the TV in that way that said he wasn’t really seeing it, just not looking anywhere else.

That…was progress.

Dad came back in and sat in the recliner, offering no word on what he had learned. The look on his face said it wasn't what he wanted yet. 

Laura took the space beside Scott without comment on the new seating arrangement.She poked at his arm much harder than Scott had.“Give me your hand.”

“Why?”

Laura snapped her fingers, impatient.“Come on.”

Stiles offered up his hand and she took it in hers.Immediately, black veins snaked up her arm and Stiles went boneless, allowing his head to flop against the cushion.

“Oh, fuck, I forgot how nice that felt.”

“Language,” Dad warned, but there was no heat in it.

Scott giggled and then got distracted by the black veins moving on Laura’s arm.She held still while Scott squished at them with his finger.

The sharp ache in Stiles's head and hands and knees disappeared and was replaced with euphoric absence. 

“So much better than drugs.”

Laura snorted.“I had better rate higher than drugs.”

“You’re astronomical.”

Derek came back and, seeing Mini-Stiles in his spot, simply plucked him up and sat down with Mini-Stiles on his lap.Mini-Stiles squawked and flailed.Only Derek’s reflexes and a stern look from Laura got him to settle down before he brained Stiles in the head.

Stiles wouldn’t have even moved.Any movement beyond blinking was off the table for a while.

By the time the doorbell rang Stiles would have been content to sink down and zone out but Laura kept nudging at him and reminding him to eat until he finished at least two slices.She tried to goad him into three but Stiles couldn’t. 

“I don’t like to eat much after I get hurt,” he said.“Makes me want to barf.”

“Please don’t do that then,” Derek said.

Laura took his remaining piece and ate it with a thoughtful expression.

Once the rest of the pizza had disappeared, Scott and Mini-Stiles helped Dad clear the plates and take out the trash.Stiles settled back into the couch and said, “Thanks for coming over, guys.”

The events of the day pressed down on Stiles and the only thing he wanted to do was go to bed and stare at the wall.He had no illusions about getting actual sleep but stretching out and pulling the covers up to his chin sounded wonderful.

Derek squeezed his arm with a half smile.Laura pecked a small kiss on the good side of his head and raised an eyebrow as if daring him to comment. 

“Get some sleep, Stilinski,” Laura said.“Future alpha’s orders.”

She waved as she and Derek left. Stiles rested his arms over his stomach and giddy warmth bloomed through him before he could stop it. Dad came back in and helped him up.Stiles was still mostly boneless thanks to the werewolf mojo.

“Bedtime.”

“Yes, please.”

It was barely eight-thirty.Dad chucked and steered him to the stairs.

Stiles decided it was too much effort to get undressed and just kicked his shoes off before he climbed under the covers.Dad came to check on him and sat on the edge of the bed.

“How are you holding up?”

“Fine now," he said, honest. "Just tired.”

Dad clasped his hands.“You’ve had a hell of a day.”

“I’m okay though.”

Dad eyed him seriously.“Are you?”

“I will be.”

It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to him.Without any memories of the actual attack it was jarring, like a missing scene in a movie, but the time he lost wasn’t like the time he lost under the nogitsune.He wasn’t out hurting people.He had run away and hidden until he came back to his senses.

And cried all over Shawn.Other than that there wasn’t anything to have nightmares about compared to everything else.Even his episode at the loft was faded somewhat.  That might have something to do with the pain draining, though. Everything felt better and softer than it had before. It was hard to work up many bad feelings about anything.

“Do you think you could tell me your side of what happened with Mini-Stiles this afternoon?So far I've heard from both of you that it started with soup and you both feel at fault."

Stiles re-situated his pillow and sighed.“I was making lunch.He didn’t mean to startle me but then I dropped the can and it went everywhere.It splattered.It was just red.Everywhere.”

Dad’s face smoothed out in understanding.Stiles hated that look but it also meant he didn’t have to explain more. The whole thing must have looked comical from another point of view, all the soup exploding over the kitchen.Stiles hadn’t even been back in to see if it was all cleaned up or if some was still on the ceiling.

“I had a freak out about it and I said some things.We both said some things.I shouldn’t have left.”

Dad pulled the covers up and Stiles would have felt more embarrassed about being literally tucked in if he could have mustered up the energy for it.

“Well, I think you both feel bad enough about it separately.I have a late shift tomorrow so the three of us are going to get out of here for a few hours and talk it through.I’ve let this go on for too long.”

Stiles grimaced and latched onto Dad's sleeve.

“Dad, it’s not your fault.We’re both assholes who don’t like to admit when we’re wrong. Like, ever.”

And it wasn’t like he’d never heard Dad or Melissa or other people joke about how fortunate it was that there was only one Stiles in the world because if there were any more of him they would probably take over. 

Testing that theory now, Stiles was sure they wouldn’t be able to stop fighting each other long enough to be that organized or devious.

“You are not assholes.You both came to this life with an abundance of personality, deep convictions, and a stubborn streak ten miles wide.And now you have to share space with each other.The keys to managing that are understanding and compromise, you two just have to find them.”

Stiles took that in and gave Dad a look.

“You’ve been talking to Melissa, haven’t you?Because that sounds like something she would say.”

Dad returned the look.

“Melissa and Talia Hale.They are very wise women and even though you two are still human you have more in common with rowdy werewolves than you think.”

“Huh.”

Dad smiled and patted Stiles’s good cheek.“Get some rest now.”

“I will.”

Dad turned off the light and left the door open.A few minutes later two sets of small feet clattered up the stairs, so Scott was staying the night.Dad went to see them in and the murmur of his voice was a calming constant.Stiles tracked Dad as he made his way back downstairs and checked all the windows and doors, shut off the lights, and made his way back upstairs.

Soon the house was dark and settled in for the night.Stiles listened to it for the longest time.Focused on the electrical hum of the appliances, the faint buzz of magic underneath that, and the usual creaks and groans of wood and metal and whatever else a house creaked and groaned with.

He fell asleep despite it all.

~

Stiles woke up with his heart in his mouth and a scream in his throat some hours later.He fumbled for the lamp switch and flooded his room with light.The features swam into view.His room.His walls.His stuff.

He ran a shaky hand over his sweaty face.It was just another nightmare.A fucked up, Frankenstein-esque mashup.

Stiles still felt Brunski lean over him, a needle in hand.Only there’d been Dread Doctors behind him and kanima-Jackson clinging to the ceiling like a horrific koala and—

Brunski had been in the grocery store.

The blurriness of what happened before the fight with Mini-Stiles slid back into focus.He sighed and looked at the clock.Three-twenty-eight.There would be no more sleep tonight.

Stiles peeled his sweat soaked shirt off and tossed it toward the dirty clothes pile.He’d have to take that down soon, it was becoming more of a mound rather than a pile.He went to the desk and turned on the light there.Sifting through the books and junk for a notebook he grabbed a pen and started writing.

He began with a mind map.Memories thrown on the page in bubbles wherever they fit just to get them down as they came to him.They were all out of order and context but when he couldn’t remember any more he tore those pages out and began to sort the information by relevance and arrange them in chronological order. 

He swallowed around the memory of Brunski’s sadistic smile, his casual, _I just love the sarcastic ones_.

Stiles made himself breathe.It was done.That Brunski was gone.Stiles let the pen fall from his hands and covered his eyes.

When he opened them again something moved in his peripheral and Stiles’s whole body flinched away before he registered it was only Mini-Stiles.Mini-Stiles standing there frozen with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands.

For a moment they stared at each other, wide-eyed like deer caught in a vehicle’s headlights.

“Hey.” Stiles's voice broke.He cleared his throat.“What’s up?”

Stiles’s glanced behind him, but Mini-Stiles was alone.Soft snores from across the hall said that Scott was still asleep.Dad, too.

Mini-Stiles opened his mouth and closed it, unsure of what to say.Instead, he held out the mug like he didn’t want to get too close.Or wasn’t sure if he was welcome.

Stiles hesitated a second but then he forced a smile and went to take the mug from him.

“Thanks, man.”

That seemed to be the permission Mini-Stiles needed.He followed Stiles back to the desk.

“Mom used to make it for me when I couldn’t sleep.”

The admission was so soft Stiles thought he had imagined it for a moment.His throat closed up for an entirely different reason.

“Mine, too.Always did the trick.”

Stiles blew on the drink and took a sip.It was a little too hot and slightly lumpy with undissolved cocoa powder.

“This is pretty awesome.”

Mini-Stiles smiled.It was a tiny thing but genuine.Then his eyes flicked down and Stiles realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.Panic curled around his heart.

“Does it still hurt?”

Mini-Stiles wasn’t looking at all the other scars or tattoos he’d always been curious about.Just the claw marks.They stood out raised and angry on his skin starting on his stomach and wrapped around his side almost to his spine.

“Nah, man.Everything healed up just fine.”

Mini-Stiles’s face pinched and Stiles knew a million thoughts were racing through his little head.He was about to say something else, assure his younger self, when Mini-Stiles found the mind map papers and he squinted to read the bubbles.

“Who's Brunski?” he pointed at the largest bubble circling the name.

Stiles cradled the mug in his hands and leeched warmth from it.

“A bad guy from my world.”

Mini-Stiles traced a finger over the different bubbles, mouthing the words as he read.

“What did he do?”

Stiles took another sip and barely winced at the burn.“He liked to hurt people.He killed some of them, made his murders look like suicides.”

He probably should not have said anything but there was a fragile sense of truce in the air around them.And just the mere presence of his younger self was actually calming despite the dream and dredging up all the memories around the sadistic asshole who had lorded over him at Eichen.Stiles didn’t want to break that or rebuke him.

“He hurt you, too?”

The question was so small.Soft.

“And Lydia.We figured out the pattern.He tried to kill us but a deputy named Parrish figured it out, too.He saved us.”

Mini-Stiles’s eyes flew open wide.“You solved crimes with Lydia Martin?”

Stiles grinned.“Well, yeah.She’s the smartest girl I know—knew.Probably in the whole world.”

“Did she ever get to win the Nobel Prize?”

Something both painful and comforting twinged deep in Stiles’s chest.“Fields medal.”

“Huh?”

“The Nobel Prize isn’t for mathematics.She had her eyes on the Fields medal.”

Somehow the two of them ended up on Stiles’s bed, the hot chocolate gone lukewarm, and they talked about Lydia and all the amazing things she came to be when Stiles knew her.His eyes grew wet and his voice choked sometimes but Mini-Stiles never commented on that. 

Mini-Stiles ate up every word and then he told Stiles all about his Lydia.How she could eviscerate someone with words alone and had a whole gang of girls like a queen at court and how she always knew the answers in their science class.She still liked Jackson, though, and Stiles sympathized with his younger self.

“But I have a ten year plan,” Mini-Stiles said.“She’s gonna fall in love with me one day.”He paused, seemed to realize something, and said, “Did she?Did yours?”

And, oh, Stiles did not want to answer that.But he did.They had a solid truce now and this was one thing Stiles knew might help his younger self in the long run.

“She did, but not because of the ten year plan.My Lydia did love Jackson for a long time.I had to accept that because it wasn’t my place to tell her who to love.Things were rocky in the beginning but eventually we became friends.I learned to see her as a whole person and not just the bits I’d admired from a distance, you know?Even after Jackson left we both dated other people.Then, one day, I was erased from reality.No one remembered me.Not even Dad.”

Mini-Stiles leaned forward, concerned and devastated.

“But Lydia found a way.It nearly drove her crazy but she put the pieces together and made people listen to her.And she brought me back.Saved me.We had a little while together after that.”

Stiles knew Lydia had to have been in those tunnels with the rest of the pack when they went up against the hunters for him.There was no way she would have stayed away, not after everything they’d suffered and lost.There hadn’t been time to really define what they were to each other after the ghost riders.One disaster slid into the next and they had held on to each other and the rest of the pack with everything they’d had.

It might have been something really good if the hunters hadn’t happened.Same with Derek.There had always been something between them, a different kind of tension he had originally mistaken for hatred and anger.Nothing ever came of that, though, except a wartime brothers-in-arms sort of friendship.

That was the continuous cruel joke of Stiles’s life.Full of maybe’s, might have been’s, and almost’s.

Mini-Stiles sighed. “She sounds like she was really wonderful.”

“You don’t know how right you are.”

Stiles didn’t remember falling asleep.But sometime later a creak outside the door roused him for a moment and he cracked his eyes open.Dad was in the doorway looking at him with a mixture of pride and fondness.Stiles was stretched out on the bed and Mini-Stiles was sprawled out beside him, his head pillowed on Stiles’s stomach and one leg hanging off the bed.

Dad came in to turn the lamps off and to gently pulled the blanket over them both.

It turned out they didn’t need to go anywhere later to sort things after all, but after they woke up and had lunch Stiles insisted on ice cream.The Stilinski’s plus Scott enjoyed some cones at the park before Dad’s shift began.Dad didn’t say anything about that morning, but he put an arm around Stiles’s shoulders while Mini-Stiles and Scott ran around the playground like idiots.

“You are one amazing and resilient kid, you know that?”

Stiles face went red but he smiled and ate the last bit of soggy cone.Dad ruffled his hair and Scott tagged Mini-Stiles who flailed over his own feet and went down in a muddy puddle with an outraged squeal.

Stiles leaned into Dad as the evening shadows began to stretch out over the ground.For the moment, despite a laundry list of things that would not be okay anytime soon, if ever, Stiles felt good.Peaceful.

Like he was right where he belonged.


	8. Lost Son, Found Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Survival is never pretty. All those scars were once wounds that bled and bled and bled.
> 
> And they will bleed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the bottom notes for trigger warnings because, boy, there’s a couple big ones and they are spoilery as well as intense. Buckle up, buttercups, it’s time for the angsty part of the end. 
> 
> If you want to experience this piece in emotional surround sound (because who doesn’t want to stomp all over their feelings in steel toed boots set to music?) play this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WgRMA3ffgE&t=390s in the background when you get to That Part. Don’t worry, you’ll know when it starts. That is the song I wrote this chapter to and I feel like I should have also had vodka with it.

The next day after breakfast Dad took Stiles aside even though he’d just come back from his late shift and needed to go to bed.Mini-Stiles was upstairs tearing his room apart for the homework he needed, every so often something would fall and he would hiss out a quiet curse.

There were a lot more f-bombs than there used to be.Stiles was pretty sure that was his fault.

“Here,” Dad said, pressing the keys to the jeep into Stiles’s hand.“I don’t want you boys walking anymore.”

Stiles’s heart twisted up in his chest.“Dad, no.”He tried to hand them back but Dad refused.

“You’re seventeen, almost eighteen, anyway.You should have a set of wheels to get around in.”

It spoke volumes that Dad seemed to have temporarily forgotten Stiles didn’t have a license here.His shift must have been exhausting if the lines around his eyes were anything to go off of.And he probably spent most of it worrying aboutStiles and his younger self, anyway.

“Dad, I didn’t even get jumped on this side of town.I’m fine walking here.”Stiles held the keys out but Dad wouldn’t take them.

“This is non-negotiable.”

“No!”Stiles hadn’t meant for it to come out so harsh.Dad drew back, stunned before he began to get angry.“I’m not taking that from him.”

Dad furrowed his brow.“What are you talking about?”

Stiles closed his eyes and gripped the familiar weight.This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have first thing in the morning.He’d only barely ingested his coffee.

“The jeep was mom’s, okay?I dreamed about getting it long before she died.It’s the most sacred object in the world to me because it was _hers_.”Stiles worked his throat around the sudden lump.“My jeep is gone.This belongs to Mini-Me.I won’t take that away from him.”

Great.Now Dad looked like he was tearing up, so Stiles continued, “I’ve been walking to school for months now.I’ll be fine.I’ve got an overloaded arsenal today, anyway.”

Stiles opened his flannel and showed Dad the charms he had reworked for more power and the four necklaces hidden beneath those.Magic was practically vibrating against his skin and it would play hell with his concentration in class, but it would also zap anything that came at him like a fly against a lightsaber.Or somewhere in that range.

Dad sighed.“I would feel a lot better if you were driving.”

Stiles grinned.“I think that’s the only time you’ve ever said that.Besides, still need a license first.Shawn would never let you live it down if I got pulled over without one.”

Dad rolled his eyes and reluctantly took the keys back.

“I didn’t realize you had such a strong connection to the jeep.Mini-You hasn’t ever said anything.”

Stiles shrugged.“I didn’t either until I was older.We didn’t talk about her a lot.”

Dad had that look on his face, the deep thought one that said he didn’t like what he was putting together.But he put the keys in his pocket.

“I’m taking both of you to school, then.”

“Dad, come on.You just got off work, I know you’re exhausted.”

Dad raised both his eyebrows and pointed at the stairs.“Help him find whatever he’s missing and both of you get your butts in the cruiser.”

There was no winning when Dad was that grumpy but Stiles knew better than to say it to his, admittedly, scary determined face.Ten minutes later all of them were in the cruiser and headed towards the elementary first and then the high school.

“Stiles, wait,” Dad said after he parked.Dad exhaled sharp through his nose and reached over, gripping the back of Stiles’s neck.“I didn’t mean to be short with you earlier.I’m sorry.”

Stiles patted his arm.“It’s okay, I know.”

“We haven’t found who jumped you yet.I’m a little on edge.”

“You’ll catch them, I know that,” Stiles said.“It was probably a random mugging.It happened to me once before in the same part of town.I was just a little more on my toes the first time.”

“Doesn’t make it any more acceptable.”

Stiles gave him a lopsided smile.“I know.What time are you going to go on shift tonight?”

“Before you get out of school.”

“Want me to bring some dinner by?”

Stiles still hadn’t made the casserole he’d planned for Dad’s celebratory dinner.All the stuff was in the fridge.The information on Brunski was also ready.Stiles hadn’t mentioned it to Dad yet.He figured he could at least soften the newest deluge of horribleness with dinner first before he gave Dad yet another reason to worry over something that had already happened to Stiles.

Writing everything out had actually turned out to be cathartic.After it was on paper and he worked it like he did any other bit of research it was like he gained distance.A little perspective.He got the whole thing out as far as he knew it.He just hoped there was enough there for Dad to go off of.

He didn’t like the idea of giving it up.Though part of him actually did?It was a tug of war in his gut because it went against every ingrained habit he had, but at the same time he had a small, inkling of a hope that if he did give it away to Dad then maybe it would be like leeching out poison.Maybe it would take some of the nightmares away.Or at least make them not as bad.

Stiles had no idea how many, if any, of Brunski's victims were still alive. He couldn't even remember all their names, just that there had been ten of them and Lydia's grandmother being the last they knew of. He hadn't had the time or means to look into her. But, if she was alive, maybe Dad could save her.

“Not if you’re walking,” Dad said.“Thanks for the offer, though.But I’ll feel better if you just don’t walk anywhere for a while.Okay?”

“Okay.But you can’t keep taking us to school every day and picking us up.Your job doesn’t really allow you that flexibility.”

“I know.I’ve talked to Laura and she’s more than happy to be your ride while we get this sorted out.So make sure you look for her this afternoon.”

Stiles was ready to argue that, if only because the memory of her humiliation tacts were still fresh, but something in Dad’s expression made him swallow it back.Dad was scared.He was holding it together better than Stiles ever could or did, but he was still scared.

“I will,” he said.

Dad squeezed his neck.“Alright.Go do school.And call me if you need anything.”

“I’ll be fine.You need to get some rest, though.You’re a grumpy old fart when you’re tired.”

Stiles tried to duck out of the car but Dad wasn’t so tired his reflexes were off.He dug his fingers into Stiles’s sides until Stiles wiggled out of reach.

“Love you!” he called and ducked out to join the crowd moving toward the front doors.Derek was there waiting.

“How’s the head?” Derek asked as they fell in step with each other.

“Still attached.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

The familiar dry humor surprised a laugh out of Stiles. 

“So many people would agree with you.”

Stiles received a lot of stares and attention all day.The bruises were pretty bad still but the lump was gone.Stiles ignored them and tried to get through the day.The spells, as predicted, made it hard to concentrate for long.He ended up reading the same paragraph several times over without retaining any of it or zoning out when he should have been taking notes.

By the time school was over Stiles wanted to peel about half the spells off himself or set them all off just to expel the energy.Derek eyed him like he expected the latter at any moment as Stiles tapped his foot impatiently.

“I’m not gonna blow up,” Stiles said through gritted teeth.

“Didn’t say you were.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“If you knew what I was actually thinking I’d be worried.”

Stiles cut him a look.“Then what are you really thinking?”

Derek’s grin was sharp.“Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

Stiles huffed.“Why, you think whatever you’re actually thinking will make me blow up?”

For some reason Derek blushed.“Maybe.”

A series of honks distracted Stiles before he could ask.Laura had arrived.They piled into the car, Mini-Stiles and Scott already in the back. 

“Thanks for driving us,” Stiles said.

“It’s no trouble, though if this becomes a regular thing I’ll have to start charging you freeloaders like a regular taxi,” she said, but Stiles could tell she was kidding.

As they turned out of the parking lot Stiles said, “Hey, can we run by the store first?”

Stiles had been kicking around a few ideas all day to distract him from the way his magic was distracting him from everything.Something Dad had said when they were at the cabin had lodged in his brain and since the attack it had wormed its way up until he couldn’t stop considering it, among a few others.

But he needed things first.Like brownies.Lots of brownies.

They got to the store and Stiles went to get out, but hesitated.As cathartic as writing about Brunski had been he didn’t want to run into this world’s man again.But then Laura said, “Why don’t we all go in?I think I’m gonna get some snacks for me and Rachel.We’re having a girls night later.”

Stiles let out a discreet breath and caught Laura’s eye in the rear view mirror.She winked and didn’t say anything else, like she already knew something was up.Maybe it was a future-alpha thing but Stiles was grateful.

Scott went with Laura to scour the snacks but Mini-Stiles, after a fast and furious conversation with Scott that consisted of only facial expressions, joined Stiles and Derek, hovering just behind Stiles the entire way.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit overkill?” Derek asked when Stiles dropped four large boxes of brownie mix into the cart.

“Cops like their brownies, Derek.You can never make too many.”

“You’re making the department brownies?” Mini-Stiles asked.

“Yeah, I—If Derek and Laura can stick around for a while and maybe drive us up there when they’re done?I figured it would be nice to drop them off since everyone is working on my case.You know, to say thanks?”

Stiles used to do things like that in his world.Never because he was a case but around the holidays, especially after he learned to cook without poisoning anyone.The wives of the deputies usually planned pot lucks and things like that and Stiles would bring casseroles and easy deserts.He wondered if they still did that here.

That wasn’t the only reason Stiles had for making brownies, but maybe it would smooth the way for the two things he really needed to do.

“You’re gonna be Aaron’s favorite person,” Mini-Stiles said.“He works the front desk and he _always_ has chocolate.”

“Good to know.”Stiles added chocolate frosting to the cart. 

“I bet Laura can be persuaded," Derek said. "But you’ll need to give her some of them as payment, just FYI.”

Stiles added another box and container of frosting.It didn’t escape his attention that Derek eyed the brownie boxes with badly disguised interest.

Once home, Stiles got right to work on the brownies. Dinner could wait for later.The good thing about them was that they were quick enough to make, especially with two werewolves helping.Even with two younger boys sneaking to dip their fingers in the batter and a short skirmish where everyone ended up with brownie mix smeared on their faces and clothes. 

Derek pulled a sneaky betrayal out of the blue as Stiles rose from putting the pans in the oven.He turned the batter scraped bowl upside down on Stiles’s head and gave it a spin, getting chocolate all in his hair.

“Dude, what the hell?” Stiles snatched the bowl off and pummeled on Derek, who had doubled over and laughed too hard to move.Not that Stiles’s pummeling did much more than make him keep laughing.Stupid werewolves and their stupid supernaturally strong bodies.Stiles tried to bite back a grin.“You are such an asshole.”

“Ooooh!” Mini-Stiles and Scott said at the same time.“Language!”

Stiles flipped them off.The boys dissolved into a hearty pile of chocolate crusted giggles.

Laura shoved Stiles towards the stairs, not bothering to hide her glee.“Go get cleaned up, chef.”

By the time Stiles came back downstairs the kitchen had been cleaned up and the dishes done.The brownies finished baking while the younger boys got a head start on their homework and Stiles and Laura took care of the icing while Derek cut them up and divvied the sweets into containers.

“Oh, my god, Stiles.These are delicious,” Laura said through a mouthful of her own stash.“But you added something, these don’t taste like normal brownies.”

“Trade secret,” he said.

It was actually a secret he picked up from Melissa.Adding just a pinch of chili powder to the mix gave the brownies a nice, subtle heat. Scott gave him a conspiratorial grin. He'd known from the first bite but he wouldn't give it away.

Laura raised her eyebrow and stuffed the rest of the brownie in her mouth.“I’m not sharing these with anyone, not even Rachel.”

They cleaned up and everyone piled back into her car to head out.Derek held the door to the station open as they trooped in, all of them carrying containers stacked in their arms.Aaron, the front desk jockey, lit up when he spotted them.

“We have brownies for everyone!” Mini-Stiles told him, grinning, and pushed a container across the desk to him. 

That got the attention of everyone in the bullpen.Soon they were surrounded by deputies and passing out containers, paper plates, and forks.

“Who made these?” Diaz asked, frosting smeared at the corner of her mouth.

“Jimmy did.He cooks a lot of stuff,” Mini-Stiles said, pointing at Stiles.

“Yo, Mercer, Jimbo here just beat out your wife’s brownies,” someone crowed.There was a friendly round of shoving that ensued.

Stiles flushed under the attention but, one thing it accomplished, no one was looking at him with pity or concern.

“Do people even work around here?What’s going on?”

Dad made his way through the crowd and stopped short when he spotted them.Stiles held out a container.

“I figured you guys could use a pick me up.”

Dad took it, looked inside, and something tense eased in his stance.“Brownies?”

“Special brownies!” Scott called out, eliciting choked off noises from all the deputies.

“Not _those_ kind of special brownies!” Stiles said, panicked.Good god, Stiles couldn’t take Scott anywhere.

The deputies guffawed and one of them clapped Stiles on the shoulder.Dad covered his mouth to hide his laugh, his shoulders shaking.Laura was off somewhere cackling with Derek.Poor Scott had a confused smile on his face, too naive to get why everyone was laughing but happy that they were happy.Mini-Stiles met Stiles’s gaze across the room and at least his younger self had an inkling he should be mortified on Scott's behalf.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Dad said when the noise calmed down. 

“You’re welcome,” Stiles said, still embarrassed.“Where’s Shawn?”

“Back in evidence, why?”

Stiles took the container back after Dad scooped out a brownie.“I’m gonna go give him some.”

Dad’s face said he suspected there was more to it than that but he nodded toward the back.“Better go now, then, because there won’t be any left when he comes out.”

The door to the evidence room was open but Stiles didn’t go in.Rule number one that his Dad had made sure he understood from a young age was that it was off limits.Even now he felt anxious standing in its doorway.Stiles had always been a nosy kid but the horribly serious sit-down Dad had put him through was burned past his memories and stamped on his soul.

“Shawn?”

Stiles craned his neck to see around the shelves.Evidence boxes were stacked and ordered in neat rows that blocked the view behind them.

“Coming!”Shawn emerged a minute later with a file.He grinned, surprised.“Selena!Good to see you.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and held out the container.

“I made some for everyone but they’re vultures.And don’t worry, Dad just had one out of there, they aren’t poisoned.”

“Ha ha,” Shawn said and dug in.“What’s the occasion?”

“Just…Thanks.” 

Stiles tapped his fists together, awkward and unsure of what else to say.He’d thought a lot about what happened at the loft and what Dad had said and tried to make sense of it.He still hated his reactions but he knew Dad hadn’t been lying.Everything Shawn had done for him had been really great and the teasing had been normal, appreciated even, when Stiles stepped back to actually think about it.

Shawn patted his shoulder.

“We’re pack, Stiles.Don’t ever hesitate to call, okay?I’ll always be here if you need me.”

Stiles took a deep breath.“Can I ask you something, then?”

“Shoot.”

“Dad said something when we were at the cabin.About doing family gym time?And that maybe you could train me.Like, hand to hand.”Stiles breathed around the surge of anxiety bubbling up his throat.“I already know some and it was enough when I was, well. _Back then_.But it’s not enough now.Obviously.”

Stiles looked everywhere but at Shawn’s face. 

“Sure,” he said, his tone soft but serious.“I can absolutely do that.”

“And Mini-Me, too.Just—just in case he ever needs it.”

Shawn nodded.“I’ll set it up with your dad.Once you get the go ahead from Melissa we’ll start.”

All the tension and anxiety bled out of Stiles at once.“Oh.Okay, thank you.”

Shawn gave him an encouraging smile.“You’re welcome.But just be warned you probably won’t be thanking me while we’re training.You’re gonna end up on your ass a lot.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.“That’s nothing new.”

They rejoined the rest of the department, who were slowly dispersing back to their various desks and jobs.Shawn put a protective arm around his brownie container, which was actually the last one left, and disappeared with it into the office he shared with Dad. 

“Everything okay?” Dad asked in an undertone.

“Yeah,” he said, truthfully.“It’s all good.”

“The brownies were an excellent hit, by the way.Once word gets around you’re going to have some jealous wives knocking down our door for the recipe.”

“I trust you’ll protect me.”

Dad pulled a face.“I dunno, they can get kind of vicious.You weren’t here for the Christmas party no one is supposed to talk about.”

Stiles laughed. 

“I think it did everyone good to see you up and around, too.”

A glance around the room showed him Dad was right.Everyone’s spirits seemed to be brighter, especially Aaron, who had a furtive look on his face like he’d managed to squirrel away some extra brownies for himself.

Stiles bit his lip and before he could chicken out pulled a thick envelope out of his pocket.He handed it to Dad.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t read it right now.Wait until you’re in your office,” Stiles said, voice low.“It might be a case.I don’t know, but I remembered what set me off before the attack.I saw someone that day and, um.I don’t know if he’s the same here as the one I knew, if he’s doing the same things, but I wrote out everything I could remember and put it in order.Maybe you can check into it.”

Dad regarded the envelope like it might have teeth and start biting.

“Do you think it’s the person who attacked you later that day?”

“I doubt it.I bumped into him at the grocery store.He doesn’t know me here.Last time I figured out his secret and—It’s all in there.If he’s doing the same things here, though, he needs to be stopped.”

Dad drew him into a hug.“Thank you for coming to me.”

Stiles nodded into his shoulder.His hands shook a little but he smiled.Stiles had done the right thing for once.

The next morning Stiles was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready when Dad came home.Stiles barely had time to turn around and greet him before Dad swept him up into a crushing hug.Stiles dropped the spatula and tentatively hugged back.

“Jesus Christ, kid,” was all Dad said.

Stiles patted him on the back.

“I’m still here.”

Dad tightened his hold as if Stiles would disappear if he let go. 

“Dad?” Mini-Stiles entered the kitchen, half dressed and squinting.

Dad opened his other arm and Mini-Stiles entered the hug without question.They stood there long enough that breakfast burned and they had to eat cereal but Stiles found he didn’t care much. 

~

Things settled down after that.Stiles’s case remained open, though.After exhausting all their leads and turning Beacon Hills upside down for witnesses his file was reluctantly put in the Unsolveds.Not that anyone actually stopped working on it, but they had nothing more to go on at the moment.

Given the amount of muggings and robberies that had resurged in the area it wasn’t surprising, although Dad didn’t take that stance.Stiles caught him in his office at home with the file spread on his desk sometimes.But Dad also had the file on Brunski to focus on as well.That seemed to take a bit of the edge off, hunting a monster he could see while waiting for the one he couldn’t to surface.

Melissa cleared Stiles for normal activity by the end of that week and Stilinski Gym Nights officially started when Dad and Shawn were put back on day shift.Twice a week Dad and Shawn picked them up from school and they went straight to the gym a few blocks from the station. 

Mini-Stiles absolutely loved it.There was a rock climbing course that he went starry-eyed over and insisted on climbing every time and trying to do each time faster than the last.He pretended to be Spiderman the whole time, fake shooting webs everywhere while Dad spotted him.So while Dad worked with him on that Stiles and Shawn worked on hand to hand.

Shawn started him out slow and at the beginning to assess him, then moved him through the basics.It was both familiar and not.The first time around when his Dad and Parrish had been teaching him, everything had gone fast.He’d had to cram and memorize everything he could in the short spaces of time they could find while hiding out or on the road.There was an edge of panic to the lessons, as well.If he didn’t learn then he could very well die if his magic failed or if no one could get to him in time.

Stiles said as much once while they took a break and rested. 

“I’d say you were successful, then,” Shawn said.

“But I wasn’t.I still got caught.”

“But you survived.”

Stiles nodded.

“And that’s the purpose of this training.It’s not about winning the actual encounter.It’s about surviving it.These skills give you an advantage to buy time to create an opportunity.Any opportunity.Then you get out of there and get to safety.”

“That’s…Obvious.I should have realized that.”

“You already know it.You’re just thinking like a vigilante right now.All of us want you to run the first chance you get every time rather than stay and finish something that has the possibility of finishing you.”

Once they moved on from practicing stances and movements to getting out of holds Stiles ended up on his ass.A lot.It still hurt despite the mats but Shawn was good natured about it, gently goading and sassing him into trying again, always praising what he did right.Whenever he messed up Shawn explained and demonstrated with an infinite amount of patience.

Then he and Mini-Stiles would switch and he had Dad and the rock wall, or sometimes the punching bags.The punching bags were the best, actually.Stiles could take out any and all frustrations on them and they didn’t hit back.Sometimes Dad would put on the punch mitts so Stiles could practice against moving targets.

Stiles began to feel better.In his head and chest, mostly, like all the pressure that circled there was slowly draining away with each session.It didn’t stop the nightmares or prevent his anxiety or flashbacks, but as weeks turned into a month he realized they were gaining gaps between the bad days.Just a smidge.

Dad noticed. 

He rescinded his ban on walking with the restriction that neither he or Mini-Stiles go anywhere alone and never over to the other side of town.That was more than doable and Stiles had more freedom when Laura couldn’t be there.She still came to pick them up or drop them off sometimes, but she was getting deeper into her future alpha training with Talia so her time was more limited.

“What does she even do?” Stiles as Derek one day.Laura had been exhausted the night before.Stiles had never seen a werewolf with bags under their eyes, hadn’t even known it was possible for them.

“I don’t know.A lot of it is just between them.They go off into the preserve for hours, sometimes days.I think it has something to do with getting to know the land.”

Stiles made a face.“What does that even mean?”

“The the land is alive.It has some sort of a personality, if I understand things right.It has to accept the future alpha as the successor, otherwise it can make the power transition dangerous.”

Stiles thought back on all the problems in his Beacon Hills. He knew the nemeton had had a hand-- or, well, _root_ _\--_ influencing some of the stuff that went on. Had that been one of the causes? That hurt his head to think about.

“So, Laura has to make sure she’s nice to all the trees and rocks and dirt so it will like her back and let her be alpha.”

Derek held out his hand and wiggled it side to side. “Eh, pretty much.”

“I don’t pray but I feel like we should be praying for her.”

Derek laughed so hard he had to hang onto the lockers to keep himself upright.

~

Of course, true to the nature of the universe at large, things on the upswing had to come down eventually.

They came down for Stiles very, very hard.

~

“I still don’t understand the sour cream.That’s for tacos and enchiladas,” Mini-Stiles said, hands stuffed in his pockets as they crossed the street.

Saturday had dawned bright and clear and the sun warmed the spring air.It was April and soon it would be May and then summer would finally arrive along with the end of school.It was a strange thing to realize.Mere months ago Stiles had been on his own running down criminals and dismantling a drug ring.Now he was about to finish out his junior year for a second time and finally become a senior once more.

“Trust me, it makes the casserole amazing.And it doesn’t turn it too runny the way milk can.I never get the milk portions right when I use it.”

“Can’t you just follow a recipe?”

“I make most of mine up.”

Mini-Stiles pulled a face like he hadn’t realized that was even possible.Stiles bit his lip to hide a smile and hopped up to the curb.

“Can you make enough to take over to Scott later?”

Poor Scotty.Spring was never kind to him with all its pollen and allergens.He was laid up in bed doing breathing treatments and being completely miserable while their elderly neighbor fussed over him. 

“Yeah, I planned on making a double batch.”

“Good.He likes your food.”

Things with Mini-Stiles had gotten better.They had the occasional arguments when they were both tired or irritated, but nothing like the last fight.Mini-Stiles was prone to getting scared sometimes, though.He had his own nightmares that cropped up from time to time.Sometimes Stiles woke up to him sneaking down to Dad’s room to sleep in there.Sometimes he came to Stiles’s room.Sometimes there was hot chocolate involved.

Dad was starting to make noise about Stiles getting his license.Especially with summer approaching.He hadn’t tried to foist the jeep off of him again but Stiles had seen him looking at used car ads in the papers on the weekends.

Stiles still had one more secret he hadn’t divulged; the money he’d taken from the drug dealers.He still had it all hidden back.It hadn’t been intentional to keep it a secret after everything but, if Stiles was honest, after he’d hidden it in the attic away from Mini-Stiles’s prying eyes, he’d completely forgotten about it.

Now that he had remembered he was contemplating how to bring its existence up.

Casually mentioning that he had over a hundred grand stuffed away in the attic would go over just about as well as he imagined it would.Which was not at all and would probably involve a lot of yelling.Dad might try to retroactively ground him.That would actually suck since Stiles had something of a social calendar now, even if it was just with Laura and Derek.

But he was going to.Had to, really.Dad didn’t need to bust his back to get Stiles a vehicle when he had more than enough to buy a nice used one and still have plenty left over.If he could convince Dad that the money could also go towards college it might soften the impending anger a lot more.And, even if he did end up grounded for a while, it would pass. 

And then there would be no more secrets between them.

Well, not exactly zero. There'd still be a few small ones, but the biggest one that mattered would be out of the way.

Stiles felt like his chest had been cracked open but instead of shoveling darkness in there was light starting to come out.He could almost breathe well again.

That should have been his first warning.Stiles had learned long that when things went right and felt _that_ good then it meant they were about to get really, really bad.But he wasn’t thinking about those kinds of worries.He was just grateful to feel that way at all after everything.

He was finally looking forward to the future.

Stiles didn’t notice anything as they came upon the alley.But then something fluttered and Stiles spotted the twenty dollar bill on the ground.

“Hey, ice cream money!”

Stiles darted for it and then he was on the ground, sharp pain cutting through his head, and Mini-Stiles screamed his name.

Then the screaming stopped.Stiles’s heart stopped after it.Scott’s last roar echoed in his head among the throbbing, concussive pain, and Stiles lurched upwards with a feral yell in time to see Mr. Lahey holding a cloth to Mini-Stiles’s face.Mini-Stiles went limp in his arms.

“You bastard!” Stiles seethed as he fell forward again, vision slipping in and out of focus.

Lahey dropped Mini-Stiles, who crumbled like a used napkin.He picked up a baseball bat and twirled it around as he stood over Stiles.

Then, without saying anything, he brought it down across Stiles’s face again. 

Stiles blacked out and came back as he was tossed in the trunk of a car.The force of it brought him up with a groan.Then Mini-Stiles was dumped on top of him and the lid shut, blacking out all the light.

Stiles tried to stay awake but once the car started moving he drifted.Each time he came up was a little longer until he fought his way up and stayed there. 

The trunk was dark and smelled funky, like old gym clothes.There were things behind Stiles but he couldn’t reach around well.Mini-Stiles was on his arms, so he maneuvered him around.

“Hey, wake up.”Stiles shook him.Mini-Stiles didn’t respond.Panic froze his lungs as Stiles felt around for a pulse point.He couldn’t find it so he pressed his whole hand over Mini-Stiles’s throat, letting out a grateful sob when the steady pulse fluttered against his palm.

“Oh, thank you.Thank you, thank you.”

He clutched Mini-Stiles to him and thanked the universe for not taking another brother from him.

Stiles fumbled at his pockets and came up with his phone.When he flipped it open the low battery signal flashed at him but he had enough juice for one call.He hadn’t even checked the damn thing before he left the house.

Stiles wanted to punch in a number right then but he cradled the phone to his chest and thought.He had to be smart about it.He needed a plan, he needed clues.

First thing first, the tail lights.Always go for the taillights if you were stuffed in a trunk.It was kidnapping 101, something his Dad made him sit through once he became sheriff.Funnily enough, through all the werewolf and supernatural fuckery Stiles had been kidnapped plenty but never actually stuffed in a trunk.

Stiles tapped around with his foot until he found it and started kicking.He couldn’t do much with his upper body because of Mini-Stiles, but he connected with the tail light once, twice.

The car braked sudden and hard, throwing Stiles backward.A high pitched, pained noise ripped from his throat and his vision whited out, but not because of his head.Something had impaled his leg.

The car jerked forward again. With a shaky hand he reached back and prodded at the side of his upper thigh.

He dropped his hand and tried to not throw up, breathing deep through his gaping mouth.

There was a screwdriver in his leg, stabbed right into the muscle.Maybe all the way to the bone.

He picked the phone back up and hit speed dial.

“Hey, kiddo, I thought you would have gone back to bed.”

Stiles sucked in a breath and quelled the sob in his chest.He had to be fast.

“Dad, listen.My battery is about to die and we need help.We-Lahey took us.Mr. Lahey, Isaac’s dad.We’re in a trunk and I’m a little stabbed.”

“Stabbed?!” A chair scraped and Stiles heard Shawn say something in the background.“Tell me what you can.”

Stiles rattled off the street they were on when they were taken and the color of the car and his injuries. 

“He chloroformed Mini-Me and he’s still out but he’s breathing.And I…”Stiles trailed off as the car switched direction.The road felt different.Bumpier.Unpaved.“He’s taking us into the preserve.”

Dad relayed that information to the officers around him.There was distant shouting and movement.Stiles didn’t want to picture Dad just then but his brain supplied the images anyway.Dad rigid, barely containing his emotions as he tried to coordinate the entire office into action, his face stony.

“Stiles, check your wound for me.How bad is it?”

“I—it’s bad.It’s in there deep.I don’t want to touch it.”

He could feel the wound seeping but not like the claw marks had been.If he removed the screwdriver it would be way worse.Dad echoed that sentiment.

“Breathe for me, okay?Try to calm down.Tell me what you hear.”

Stiles tried but the pounding in his head and the sway of the vehicle made him nauseous and there was too much rushing in his ears.

“He’s gonna murder us.”The thought was actually calm and steady among all the others racing through his head.A focal point.An anchor.Stiles trembled. “I’m not gonna let him.”

In that moment, Stiles knew two things with absolute certainty: Mini-Stiles had to survive at all costs and Stiles could not, would not fail him. 

This was battle again.Not against a supernatural creature or an unstoppable army or vengeful hunters.It was against one human but a battle none the less.

The last of his anxiety disappeared without a whisper.

It was like putting on the mask again.That initial cold but calm headspace he entered when he had left the loft as the Shadow, knowing he was going to war to keep his family safe.

“Stiles, find a way to survive,” Dad said with tears and steel in his voice as if he could hear Stiles’s thoughts.“ _Both_ of you survive, whatever you have to do.Just hang on for me, I’m coming.You hear me?I am coming to get you—”

The phone beeped and then died. 

Stiles let it fall and stared up at the trunk lid, resolve building thick in his chest like a storm.He breathed and counted his way through the spikes of pain in his head. The car was climbing.The road started to switchback.

One particularly sharp curve jostled Mini-Stiles and he groaned.

“Hey, you with me, short stack?”

Mini-Stiles whimpered and groaned again.Stiles had never been chloroformed but he bet it was overly disorienting so he pulled him younger self close and traced a grounding circle on Mini-Stiles’s arm with his thumb.

“What happened?”

“Don’t panic, but we’re in kind of a pickle, here.”Stiles swallowed down his guilt.It wasn’t important now.“We’re being kidnapped.I’ve called Dad, though, he’s rounding up the cavalry and he’s coming for us.”

For a moment the two of them were silent as Mini-Stiles processed that.

“It was the scary guy from the grocery store, right?”

“Yeah, from before Christmas.”

Stiles hadn’t gone back to recharge the spell on Lahey, not since Isaac was still with his aunt.Dad had kept tabs on him to make sure.Lahey had signed over custodial rights sometimes in early March.He had never attempted to visit his son.

“He—he hit you, didn’t he?Are you okay?”Mini-Stiles said, panicked.Stiles hushed him and kept him from turning around.The last thing he needed was for Mini-Stiles to poke at his head.

“I’ll be fine.I’m working on a plan to get out of here.”

Mini-Stiles heaved a sigh.

“Oh, good, because my brain feels funny and I don’t think I can.”

Stiles would have laughed at any other time.But it wasn’t funny.Was this how Dad felt when Stiles tried to take the reins on something he shouldn’t be dealing with?Because it felt awful and hurt his chest and Stiles really needed to apologize to Dad for it.Both of them.

“It’s okay, I got this one.”

The car made another sharp turn and slowed down.The screwdriver moved and Stiles bit down on a scream.

“Are—are you scared?”

Stiles squeezed him tight.“Oh, I’m always scared.But it’s gonna be okay.I’ve been in worse situations than this and got out of them.”

It wasn’t so much a lie as a careful sidestep of omissions.Stiles had been in worse situations, but this was different.He wasn’t completely alone or with his pack.It was just him and his younger self and Stiles absolutely could not let him die.

Mini-Stiles relaxed, trusting him.

“Okay.What’s the plan?”

“Working on it.”

The car took a new turn and Stiles’s gut told him they were close to stopping.He breathed through the pain and thought through all the angles, all the possibilities. 

Stiles had cut back on his magical arsenal a week after the attack.The concentrated energy had been too much to handle every day and still keep up with school.On any given day since then he had a number of charms for distraction, linked spells to Mini-Stiles, Scott, and Dad so he had a way of knowing where they were, his quick-foot spell, and some offensive spells, human grade.

Stiles did a check of them now.His jeans had most of what he needed, but his shirt was an old blended fiber one, the last clean shirt he had because he never got around to doing his damn laundry, so it had nothing.The best offensive spells he had would buy him seconds at most.

And he arrived at a plan.It wasn’t a terrible plan as far as plans went but it wasn’t ideal and Dad would…Shit.

 _I’m sorry,_ Stiles thought, meaning it from the depths of his soul.He was a fucking monster for even considering this.If it went sideways it would be a knife in Dad’s heart.

If it were anyone else stuck here with him in this trunk they would veto the plan and make him come up with something else.Something better.But they weren’t.He had a nine-year-old kid who had barely mastered some hand-to-hand and shouldn’t have been put in this position in the first place. 

Dad needed time.Stiles was the only one capable of giving it to him.He had to get his younger self to safety, give him a fighting chance, make his opportunity.

Even if it meant staying behind.

And that was that.Stiles shut down everything that wasn’t necessary inside his head.Dad had told him to do whatever it took.He wanted both of them to survive but Stiles had to work with what he had and the facts were that he had limited resources and a narrow time frame.Given the variables and the parameters there had to be a margin of acceptable loss.

Stiles was that margin.

But he wasn’t going to make it easy.

“I need you to listen close.”Stiles dropped his voice to make his tone calm and even.“He’s going to stop soon and at some point he’s going to open the trunk.When he does things are going to happen quick.They’re going to get scary.”

“This is already scary, dumb ass.”

Stiles pinched him.

“ _Listen_.When he opens the trunk I’m going to distract him.I have a few spells to do the trick.And I’m gonna put one of them on you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.It’s gonna let you run fast, like the Flash.”Mini-Stiles sucked in a breath at that.“When I distract him I’m going to push you out of the trunk.You need to tuck and roll like Shawn taught us, okay?Then get on your feet and run.”

Mini-Stiles was quiet for a moment.

“What will you be doing after that?”A strong note of suspicion colored his voice.

Stiles swallowed.

“I’m going to keep him distracted.”

“No!”

“Shut up!” Stiles clamped his hand down over Mini-Stiles’s mouth.They didn’t need Lahey to hear they were both awake.

Mini-Stiles pulled it off.“No!” he whispered vehemently.“You have to come with me, we’ll both run fast.”

“There’s something— there’s a screwdriver in my leg, okay?I can’t run, even with the spell.I don’t know if I can even walk.”

The silence after that admission was stifling.Mini-Stiles shuddered and let out a sob.Stiles tightened his grip around him, as close to a hug as he could manage.Mini-Stiles clung back to him so hard there would be tiny fingerprint bruises on his skin.

“I’m not just gonna _abandon_ you!”

Stiles buried his face in Mini-Stiles hair.

“Oh, you’re not.You’re going to meet the cavalry and bring them back to save me.”The car began to slow even more, so Stiles continued. “You’ll go faster and farther than you think, so stay on the road.Don’t go into the woods or you could get lost.Follow the road, go downhill.When you’re out of sight start screaming.Scream for Derek and Laura.Shawn’s probably called the pack to scour the woods so they’ll be out looking.They will hear you.”

Stiles had no doubt that Dad had roused every able-bodied person and creature he had access to and was roaring down the highway towards the preserve as he spoke.But the preserve was a large place and Dad didn’t know where to start yet.He just needed time and Lahey wouldn’t to give them much.The look in his eyes, crazed and triumphant, said he wanted to make Stiles pay horribly for what he had done.

“I don’t think I can,” Mini-Stiles whispered, voice on the edge of panic.

“Yes, you totally can.Because I need you to do this for me.” 

Stiles hated it but he knew himself.Make it about Mini-Stiles, say it was to protect him, and he wouldn’t budge.If he made it about himself, though?Mini-Stiles would find the strength to move heaven and earth.They were both shit at self preservation but champions at putting others first. 

Martyrs, the pair of them, through and through.

“I want to go home tonight.”Emotion clogged Stiles’s voice and pricked at the corners of his eyes.“I want to eat dinner with you and Dad on the couch and watch some stupid TV show, whatever’s on.I want to get up in the morning and walk you to Scott’s and do my fucking homework when we get back.So I need you to do this.It’s your turn to save my ass.”

Stiles didn’t wait for an answer.He yanked Mini-Stiles’s shirt up and, with a grimace, felt down to his leg and dipped his fingers into the warm blood seeping out of him.It was quick work to draw a spell pattern on Mini-Stiles’s ribs (“Oh, _ewww_!”) and then to transfer the reserved magic in his own quick-foot spell to him.

“That feels weird.” Mini-Stiles twitched as the magic settled on him.

“Repeat back to me what you need to do.”

Mini-Stiles did, voice barely hitching.He gathered himself so he was curled in a half ball, feet planted underneath him like a spring.

“And then scream for Derek and Laura and keep screaming,” Mini-Stiles finished.

“Excellent, dude.Run for as long as you can.The spell only lasts a few minutes but that can get you pretty far.”

“If I do this you have to promise me something,” Mini-Stiles said.

“What?”

The car rolled to a stop and parked.Lahey was moving around, unbuckling his seat belt.Climbing out of the car.

Mini-Stiles gasped but coiled up even tighter, ready.“Promise me you won’t die.”

God damn it.

“I’m gonna do everything I can to stay alive.”

“That’s not a promise!”

“Get ready.”Dirt crunched outside from Lahey’s footsteps.Before he could think better of it, Stiles said, “Whatever happens, take care of Dad.And let him take care of you.”

Mini-Stiles had no time to reply.A key scraped the lock of the trunk and then the lid opened.Stiles thrust one hand up and set off a combination of bright flashes in Lahey’s face.The man jerked back and shielded his eyes with an angry cry.Then Stiles muttered the activation for the quick-foot spell and shoved Mini-Stiles out of the trunk.

With a grunt, Stiles hauled himself out and landed gracelessly on the ground while Lahey was still distracted.Mini-Stiles was already out of sight, a dust trail lingering in the air like a Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon to tell of his passing.Stiles scrambled upright as Lahey shook the bright spots out of his eyes and seethed.

Stiles hung on to the car and kept it between him and Lahey, dragging his impaled leg uselessly as movement sent sharp stabs of pain up and down his nerves.

Lahey slammed the trunk closed and advanced.There was a stark madness in his eyes, almost like the omega in the woods.He clutched the baseball bat in his hand.Stiles kept backing up, one hand on the car, the other on his leg and prayed it wouldn’t give out on him.

“I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a while, you little shit bird.”

Stiles smirked, nasty and sharp, even though he wanted to throw up.“Murdering children in the middle of nowhere?You must really be living the dream.”

Stiles tried to sense out the spell he’d placed on Lahey but found no traces left.It was completely gone, removed.No way to reactivate it. _Fuck._

“Oh, I am.I did some looking around after Christmas, found some people who showed me a thing or two about what you are.Managed to get the bomb out of my head you put there, too.”

Lahey kept advancing and Stiles kept retreating, his eyes never leaving Lahey’s face.

“You slipped me once last month.Figures you’d be a squirmy little weasel, but everyone has a weakness, don’t they?”Lahey lashed out with the bat.It hit the car and left a scratch and dent, meant to intimidate, to throw Stiles off balance.“Too bad the little brat got away.No matter, though.I’ll hunt him down when I’m done with you.Kid like him?He won’t get far in these woods.”

“You won’t get the chance,” Stiles spat.

Stiles made a downward slashing movement, said a word, and a burst of invisible heat lashed out like a whip.It cut across Lahey’s face and left an angry welt behind.

Lahey came forward swinging blind.Stiles sent out another lash of heat.It caught Lahey across the hands and he dropped the bat.Stiles pushed him back with three more before the spell ran dry.

Lahey howled and Stiles seized the opportunity to hobble-run.

They were in the middle of a clearing.A rundown shack stood off to one side next to a broken down Chevy truck, the tires all flat and the body covered in flaking rust.Beyond that was a pond.And that was it.If he could make it to the shack he might be able to lay his hands on a weapon of some kind, something to keep Lahey at a distance.

The screwdriver jarred up and down, striking every last nerve in Stiles’s leg, shooting pain up his bones to his brain and down his leg to the ends of his toes.

“I’m going to make you beg before the end, _boy_!”

That was the only warning Stiles had before the bat sailed through the air and struck him across his shoulders.He went down and then Lahey was on him.Harsh blows landed on his back, his side, and then fingers dug painfully into his hair and hauled him up to his knees.Lahey’s face swam in Stiles’s watery vision before he slammed his knee up into Stiles’s jaw.

Stiles ended flat on the ground, pain radiating from everywhere and blood coating his tongue.Lahey hauled him back up and drove a fist into Stiles’s stomach.Stiles wheezed and gasped, bent in half, clinging to Lahey for support.

“No one plays with my head and gets away with it _._ Especially not pathetic little bastards like you.” 

Lahey punched him again and Stiles acted before he could think about it.He yanked the screwdriver out of his leg in one fluid motion and stabbed upward into Lahey’s side.The man grunted, eyes blown wide. 

Stiles pulled his lips back into a mad, laughing snarl that bared his bloody teeth. “You think you scare me?You want me to beg?”Stiles tore the screwdriver back out and stabbed him again, hoped he hit something vital.“You will never be _half_ the monster I can be!”

Lahey grabbed Stiles’s arm and wrestled the screwdriver from him.Stiles kicked out and twisted away but the screwdriver bit through the flesh of his shoulder.

Stiles went down with a scream of pain and fury.

~

Mini-Stiles ran so fast the world was a blur.Like looking out of the side window of a vehicle going at least seventy miles per hour except way more intense.His sneakered feet felt like they barely touched the ground.Like his body had shed its weight and he had turned into the wind.

“LAURA!DEREK!”

It was almost too fast, especially going downhill.Mini-Stiles went sprawling twice and nearly fell off the edge of the road, where awaited a very, _very_ steep drop.But he got up and kept going.He had to keep going.All he could hear in his head was Stiles’s not-promise echoing on and on.

All he could think was that he didn’t want to go to another funeral.He didn’t want another person-shaped hole at home. 

“LAURA!DEREK!”

Then the spell began to wear off.Mini-Stiles pushed himself as his legs grew heavier, as the world began to slow.He had to keep going.He had to get help or—

“LAURA!HELP!”

He never saw who stepped out in front of him but Mini-Stiles hit them full force and they went rolling.The other person wrapped themselves around him and tucked his head into their shoulder so they took the brunt of the fall.When they stopped Mini-Stiles gasped for air, too stunned to move.

“Stiles!Hey, hey, are you okay?”

Mini-Stiles sobbed and latched onto Laura, who appeared above him.She picked him up as if he still weighed nothing and Derek leapt to his feet, having been the one to catch Mini-Stiles.

“Where is he?” Derek asked, eyes wide.

Mini-Stiles pointed back up the road.“There’s a junked out truck in a clearing, that’s all I saw.That’s where he took us.He—he— Stiles stayed behind.”Mini-Stiles’s voice cracked but he didn’t care.Laura just squeezed him tighter.

Derek whipped out his phone and pressed a button.“Shawn!They’re at Mildner Pond.We have Mini-Stiles.”

Derek listened for a minute, then looked at Laura, who had yet to let Mini-Stiles down.

“We’ll meet you there,” Derek said and ended the call.

“He’s hurt, we have to hurry,” Mini-Stiles said and told them about the screwdriver.“I tried to make him promise not to die.”He looked up at Laura, naked panic in his eyes.“He wouldn’t promise.”

Laura’s face went deadly.Mini-Stiles had never seen that look on her before.Laura was always devious, smiling and laughing and occasionally annoyed, but never that.She passed Mini-Stiles to Derek then threw her head back and howled. 

Mini-Stiles gaped up at her in awe.He’d known for a while she was a werewolf and she had transformed her face to show him her eyes and her fangs, but she’d never made that noise before.It rattled him down to his toes and echoed through the woods.It was rage and the promise of great violence.

More howls answered her in the distance from all sides.

Derek dropped to his knee.“Climb on and don’t let go.”

Mini-Stiles latched onto Derek’s back like a monkey and then he and Laura ran full tilt up the logging road.It wasn’t as fast as the spell but faster than anything Mini-Stiles could have done without it.

Ahead, a human scream ripped through the air.Laura and Derek both howled again and put on extra speed.The sound echoed through Mini-Stiles and his heart beat against his ribs and lungs like it wanted to howl with them.He dug his fingers into Derek’s shirt and willed their feet to go faster.

Behind them, two minutes away, sirens tore through the preserve.

~

The world tilted as Lahey dragged Stiles backwards.Stiles hit at his arms ineffectually.The screwdriver was gone, lost in the scuffle, and Lahey was still upright, powering forward through pure adrenaline and hatred.

Stiles’s heels dragged through the grass.Every inch of him screamed in agony.His hands were slick with blood.His own and Lahey’s.He couldn’t get purchase.Couldn’t flip the tables as his adrenaline flagged.

But he kept trying.That’s what Stiles did.When things were hopeless and dire he didn’t give up.Even when he needed to.Even when it was clear which way the tide was turning.

Stiles’s entire life had led up to this moment.He was the vicious little kid on the playground who leapt to Scott’s defense even though Jackson was bigger than both of them. 

He was the morbidly curious teen who dragged his best friend out into the woods to see a dead body and instead fell headlong into the world of the supernatural. 

He was the calculating second in command weighing options against innocent lives; he was the Shadow as judge, jury, and executioner. 

He was the lost son found again who didn’t know how to exist in this world but was trying to do so with all he had.

He might die before he learned.But he wouldn’t go without a fight.

Stiles grasped at the ground around him.His fingers slipped through grass and weeds and pebbles.His feet kicked and he brought his heels down, sought purchase.He found a bit and used it to launch himself upward, fist balled up, and struck at Lahey’s bleeding side.

Lahey went to his knees and dropped Stiles.Stiles turned to crawl.He dug into the earth and he scrambled hand over hand.

Lahey yanked him back by his bad leg.Stiles screamed as his knee wrenched.Then the man had him up and threw him down a slope.Stiles tumbled and hit the water.His head went under.He pushed back up.Lahey splashed down beside him, grabbed the front of his hoodie, and plunged him below the water’s surface.

A long time ago, he had described the body’s process as it drowned to Ms. Morrell.It had been fresh in his mind, the phantom stench of chlorine still choking his senses with Derek’s paralyzed weight pulling him down.He had described drowning as agony.

Stiles scratched and clawed at Lahey’s arms.He saw the man’s face above him, ripples distorting his features, his teeth bared down at Stiles in a killer’s smile.He brought Stiles out of the water gasping and then pushed him back under.

Time ticked by in eternities.His lungs burned and his body ached.Stiles struggled onwards. 

_If it’s about survival, isn’t a little agony worth it?_

Mud debris and pond scum churned with bubbles around him and blocked out Lahey’s face.Black spots began to crowd Stiles’s vision.His brain screamed at him to hold on, keep holding his breath even as his lungs begged for air.He gathered up one last burst of energy and tried to push off of the bottom.He almost surfaced.

Then Lahey drove him down until his head hit mud and the black dots edged out the color in his vision. 

Stiles opened his mouth and the water rushed in.

~

Mini-Stiles peered frantically over Derek’s shoulder as they entered the clearing.The car was off to the side, trunk closed, a bloody handprint smeared on its side.Then he heard splashing from the right.Derek and Laura turned towards it and Mini-Stiles’s heart stopped, his brain uncomprehending as Lahey rose from the water in the pond, a body half submerged at his feet.

Laura surged forward with a deafening roar.Lahey barely had time to turn before she was on him.They went down into the water, claws slashing, pink froth bubbling up.Derek ran after her and veered off to the body.

To Stiles.

Derek jumped in and grabbed him under his arms.Mini-Stiles leapt off his back and pulled at his older self’s legs to help, even though Derek was stronger.They got him up the bank, water sluicing down his soaked clothes, and Derek knelt down to press his ear to Stiles’s chest. 

Stiles’s eyes were half open, unseeing, his skin chalk white and flecked with mud and scum and the beginnings of discolored bruises.The expression on his face was frozen in defiance, one side of his mouth quirked up as if he’d been saying _fuck you._

“Stiles, wake up, asshole.Come on.”Derek started chest compressions.Each time he pressed down Stiles’s head moved a little from side to side but nothing changed.He never blinked.

Mini-Stiles heard the sirens getting closer.He heard something tear and break and splash in the pond.But he couldn’t do anything except look down at Stiles and watch Derek’s hands pump up and down, up and down.

His mom had looked like that.Pale and tiny in the hospital bed.Some paper doll crumpling in on herself like her insides were disappearing.She had winked out of existence like a star erased from the sky and the heart monitor had screamed to let everyone know about it.

Mini-Stiles clutched at Stiles’s arm until he found his hand.A hand that could call magic into being, that had rough callouses and long fingers.A hand that had cooked dinner and sewn charms and fought monsters and helped him with his homework.Mini-Stiles pressed his fingers to Stiles’s wrist.The scars there stood out thick and ropey.He slid down farther to search for a pulse point.

Stiles’s skin was cold and clammy and _lifeless._

“Stiles, breathe, damn you!”

Mini-Stiles tightened his grip on Stiles’s hand so hard his nails broke the skin.He pressed the hand to his chest and wished as hard as he could for magic. 

Mini-Stiles had been in awe and jealous that Stiles was basically a wizard from day one, and he'd hoped he would be one day, too.But right then he wanted any magic he had to go into Stiles if it meant he woke up.

He was supposed to save Stiles.He had come back.He’d brought the cavalry.

_Magic, make him live._

~

The cruiser sped into the clearing and skidded to a halt.John was out of the car in a blink, Shawn on his heels, guns drawn as they scanned the area.

“BOYS!?”

“Here!” he heard Derek yell.

John ran towards the voice, heart in his throat.The first thing he saw was Laura.Soaking wet, she stood in rippling pink water up to her knees, claws out, eyes wild, and body parts floating around her.She began to wade to shore and John cut his eyes to the left and—

His feet moved on autopilot to Derek and Mini-Stiles where they crouched around Stiles.

Stiles wasn’t moving. 

Derek looked up, tears streaking his face, still trying to start Stiles’s heart.

“Shawn— he won’t breathe,” he said, like a child begging his brother, _fix it._

Shawn tugged at Derek.“Get him out of here, I’ll take over.” 

Shawn slid into Derek’s place and continued chest compressions. Derek plucked Mini-Stiles off the ground, who went from frozen to kicking and screeching like a feral cat.John hit the ground with a jarring crack in his knees.He tilted Stiles’s head back, pinched his nose, and breathed for him.

“Come on, Stiles.Breathe, breathe.”John counted the compressions and tried again.And again.And again.“You can do this.”

He was dimly aware of Mini-Stiles still screaming as Laura sank down and pulled him and Derek to her.John leaned down and pushed air into Stiles’s lungs.

Stiles stared past him like his photo had on the crime board for months on end.Like he had in the cruiser while John held his insides in place.Shawn counted out and John breathed for him again. 

Four hours ago Stiles had made coffee and sat with John at the table before he left for work.They’d talked about dinner.About going to the theater that weekend, seeing a superhero movie Stiles assured him would be epic.John had made a joke, something about Stiles’s hair, and Stiles had laughed, tugging on the rat’s nest that stood up at all angles.It was getting so long.He hadn’t cut it at all since before Christmas.

Four hours ago John had left, called out goodbye to both boys, and walked out the door.No hug.No I love you.

“You don’t get to do this, Stiles.Breathe!”

Werewolves darted out of the woods from all directions and converged on them.More sirens made their way up the logging road, into the clearing.People spilled out.Shouted orders.Gathered around the banks.

“Talia is on her way,” Peter Hale, Talia's second, said, somewhere near Laura and Derek.“She can bite him once she gets here if she needs to.And Mrs. McCall has the hospital standing by.”

“But he’s still not breathing,” Derek replied, numb.

Laura clutched Mini-Stiles to her while he fought and wailed.

John breathed for Stiles again.

The seconds ticked by.Shawn didn’t stop and neither did John.John rested his hand on the crown of Stiles’s head. 

_Come back, I’m here.I’m here._

And then he did.

Stiles convulsed and water bubbled up out of his mouth.They rolled him onto his side and he vomited pond water, gasping between heaves and John could not think of a better sound.Shouts went up around them.John and Shawn supported Stiles on each side to keep him up.

“That’s it, that’s it, kiddo, come on.”

Stiles coughed and gagged until he had most of it out.John grabbed him up and slid backwards, dragging Stiles into his lap, embracing him as close as they could get.He held out his other hand.

Mini-Stiles untangled himself from Laura and leapt into the pile.John pulled him in and held them there, sobbing into his kids as everything broke loose inside him.Stiles fumbled until his hand latched onto John’s arm and he began to shiver. 

“Still here,” Stiles croaked.

“I love you.I love you boys so much,” John hiccuped.He rocked them back and forth and didn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: graphic description of fighting, injuries, blood, graphic description of drowning, and temporary character death.
> 
> Due to the tweaking that happened in the chapter before, this one also had to be tweaked and I never did get to finish the epilogue like I wanted to this weekend. But it’s coming! Maybe in a few days, definitely by next weekend.


	9. Little Aftershocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's done is done and what's ahead is yet to come. Here and now is the only place you can live because almost will never be a land you dwell, only a place your darkest thoughts strive to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: panic attack, anxiety, brief non-graphic allusions to sexual assault, brief discussion of suicide.
> 
> Due to the batshit crazyness of work last week I didn't get to work on this until, like, yesterday, so it's late but it's done and I hope you enjoy the conclusion to this part of the series. I'm so bleary-eyed from staring at the screen so hopefully there's not too many mistakes or typos.
> 
> I'm so happy and sad to finish this part but there's more to come later.

Shawn found him later that night sitting in a chair between two hospital beds.John’s arms were numb from keeping a hold on a hand from each boy, both of whom were asleep and finally resting in beds opposite of each other, but he couldn’t let go.The only thing keeping him sane was the sound of them breathing, one easy and snoring and one with a little rattle that antibiotics were battling to keep it from turning into full blown pneumonia.

It kept replaying in his head.The phone call, the calm resignation that about gave John a heart attack right there in the bullpen.The way Mini-Stiles kept screaming. The vacant stare as he and Shawn tried to bring Stiles back to life. Especially that sick ball of dread that grew heavier and heavier in John’s gut as they raced toward the preserve, time slipping away through his fingers and he knew he was going to be too late.

The thought of putting more coffins in the ground, of having to compose something for his children’s headstones—

“Stilinski.”

John blinked, eyes wet, and Shawn was crouched in front of him trying to get his attention.

John looked over between his boys.Mini-Stiles was curled up in a ball towards him.Stiles’s head was tilted toward him.Both seeking John out even when they weren’t conscious.

“Hale.”John cleared his throat.

Shawn’s face was drawn and haggard, eyes concerned.

“Come on.Let’s get you up for a minute.”

John didn’t want to let go of his boys but he began to feel the deep ache in his joints from sitting there too long.He had no idea what time it was but it was probably late into the night. 

“Hands are numb,” he said, voice gruff.“Can’t let go.”

“I got it.”

Shawn gently untangled his fingers and laid the boys’ arms on their beds.Even pulled the covers up over Mini-Stiles and checked Stiles’s pulse before he helped leverage John out of the chair.John got as far as the hallway before he collapsed back against the wall and began shaking.

Shawn gripped his arm and he was shaking, too.But they held each other up under the harsh lights in the empty hallway.

“I almost lost everything today,” John said.“I almost lost them.”

“But you didn’t,” Shawn said back, fierce.“We got to them in time.We brought him back.They’re both going to be just fine.”

It was a little early to be making that kind of promise.Mini-Stiles seemed to be okay after getting chloroformed, but John was well aware how critical the first few days after a near drowning were.Between the lack of oxygen to the brain and any water still in the lungs there were a number of complications that could arise.Things like brain damage. 

Jesus fuck.

And that wasn’t even accounting for the other injuries Stiles had sustained.Or the new psychological trauma laid fresh over everything he’d already been dealing with.

“They almost weren’t, Shawn.I almost—he almost—“

“But he didn’t.”Shawn gave him a firm shake.“Lahey is dead.He will never hurt them again.Your little one did everything right, everything we taught him to do.And your older one kept fighting and held on until the last possible second.He knew you would get there.He held out for you.And you didn’t let him down.He’s right here, they both are.”

John hung his head and breathed around the rabbit-sick panic filling up his chest.

“How are Laura and Derek?” 

Shawn inhaled sharp and deep.“In shock.Mom and Peter are taking care of them.Laura’s…She’s not talking much yet.Derek is pretending he’s fine.They just keep asking about the boys.”

John didn’t wish the weight of taking a life on anyone, let alone a nineteen year old girl, but he was so happy she’d been there.Both of them.Those two minutes may have made all the difference for Stiles. 

John would have riddled that bastard with bullets if there’s been anything left of him still alive.He almost wished there was.

“He knew, Shawn.”

“Who knew what?”

“Stiles.You didn’t hear his voice.He knew what was going to happen.He accepted it.Didn’t even hesitate.”

No seventeen year old should have been so willing to lay their life on the line like that.It shouldn’t have crossed his mind at all, no matter the situation.

“He came from a war,” Shawn reminded him.“He assessed the stakes and acted on the information he had.Same as we do.But he didn’t resign himself to death.He fought.He fought so hard.He knew you were coming and he held out for _you_.”

“We almost weren’t—“

“Shut up about almost.”Shawn gave him a hard shake.“We don’t live in almost.We live here and those boys are alive _here_ and _now_.Remember?”

The noise John made was somewhere between a sob and a laugh.Throwing his own damn words back at him, John didn’t know whether to be proud or sad.

“When did you get to be so smart, rookie?”

Shawn pulled away.A firm but small smile on his face.

“The day I partnered up with you.”

John wiped at his face and pulled himself together.Shawn was right.His boys were here, alive, and they needed him to be here with them, not off entertaining the millions of horrible ways things could have gone.

“Go home and get cleaned up, okay?Get something to eat, too.I’ll stay here with them until you get back.”

John wanted to object but he stunk of mud and mildew and the scent made him want to vomit.He also had blood on his shirt and pants and under his fingernails.

“Go,” Shawn said with a bit more force.“Diaz is downstairs.She’ll drive you.”

That was probably a good thing.John didn’t have the concentration to get behind the wheel just then.With his luck he’d end up in a ditch.

“Call me if they wake up, or if—“

“I will.Now go.”

Shawn sat down in the chair John had kept vigil in and laced his fingers over his stomach.John knew he wouldn’t move an inch.

~

The house was so quiet when they arrived.It was an alien thing, dark and silent and bereft of life.Like it was holding its breath.  Waiting.

John flipped the lights on and gestured toward the kitchen.

“Help yourself, Diaz.”

“Thank you, sir.”She took a seat at the table but made no move towards the fridge.John had no idea what was even in there.His brain wouldn’t pull any information past that morning.

Diaz would figure it out.John kept himself on task and went upstairs, mechanically getting ready for a shower, setting out clean clothes.He stopped cold outside the boys’s rooms.Both had clothes piled up in a corner and clean laundry piled on a chair neither of them ever got around to actually putting away.The beds were unmade.Homework strewn on their desks.

Evidence of life.The messy, messy life of boys who left the house to go to the grocery store and almost died horribly in the woods.

John covered his mouth and hung on to the doorframe for support.

But Shawn was right.Almost hadn’t happened.He pulled himself up and took the quickest shower of his life, scrubbing that damnable smell off his skin and dressing in clean jeans and a sweatshirt before going back downstairs.

Diaz stopped him and put a plate with a sandwich in his hands.

“Eat that before we leave.I think the last thing you had were those secret cookies you keep in your desk.”

She was probably right and John did, devouring it without tasting it in five bites.He wouldn’t be any good to anyone if he didn’t take care fo himself, too, though it was the last thing on his mind.He left the plate in the sink and they were about to walk out when Diaz’s phone rang.

“It’s Shawn,” she said, and handed it over.

“Are they awake?” John asked, sans greeting.

“Daddy?”

John went weak.“Mischief, hey.I’m on my way back right now.How are you doing?”

Mini-Stiles had been given a mild sedative after his own examination while a separate team had gone to work on Stiles’s more severe injuries.Mini-Stiles wouldn’t calm down, even with John there, nearly panicking himself unconscious over the status of his older self.

“I’m okay.”He sounded a tad groggy and perturbed.His voice was rough from all the screaming.“He’s not, though.”

“What’s going on?”

Voices in the background were distorted and unintelligible.John had no idea if he locked the door on the way out of the house, couldn’t bring himself to care, just got in the cruiser and Diaz left with speed.

“He woke up and freaked out.He doesn’t know Shawn.”

“What do you mean he doesn’t know Shawn?”

Mini-Stiles said, “He can’t remember him.”

“Diaz, floor it.”

They made it to the hospital in record time.John didn’t even wait for the elevator but took the stairs two at a time.Before they parked Mini-Stiles had said, “Hold on, I’m gonna help,” and put the phone down before John could tell him not to. 

Heart in his throat, John ran to the room.

“Just leave him alone, he needs space!” Mini-Stiles yelled.

When John stepped in it was to a far more chaotic scene than he’d left.Shawn and Melissa were attempting to calm the situation.Stiles had somehow left the bed and made it across the room to the tiny bathroom but clung to the doorway where he was in the middle of a panic attack.Mini-Stiles stood in front of him, preventing anyone from getting close.

Stiles had a bone white grip on one of Mini-Stiles’s hands and his younger self clung back just as hard.

“Boys, it’s okay.I’m here.”

Mini-Stiles, face scrunched up and angry, pointed at Shawn and Melissa.“Make them go away.”

This wasn’t a tone John was used to hearing from his youngest.Mini-Stiles had the utmost respect for Melissa and loved Shawn to death.But he planted himself firmly between them and his older self, his small body bunched up like an angry cat about to spring.

John glanced at Shawn and Melissa.He nodded.“Let me take care of this,” he said, pitching his voice low and calm.

“Stiles burned the medications out of his system,” Shawn murmured low before he left.“All of them.He’s going to need more.”

John gave him a curt nod and they joined Diaz out in the hall.John closed the door, both to give his kids the assurance of privacy and to prevent either or both of them from making a run for it if the notion struck.

“Okay, guys.It’s just us now.Can I come over and see how you are?”

Neither boy answered but he saw Stiles squeeze his younger self’s hand.Mini-Stiles nodded.

John approached his boys slow.

“Stiles?Are you okay if I touch you?”

His older one nodded but kept his eyes closed as he wheezed.John reached out and touched his shoulder.When that wasn’t rejected he slid around to rub Stiles’s back.

“Hey, I’m here, kiddo.Let’s get you back to a bed, how does that sound?”

“I can’t—can’t move.”

“That’s okay.I’ve got you.I’m gonna put your arm over my shoulder and then you just lean on me.Get on his other side, Mischief, there you go, let him lean on you.”

Between the two of them they got Stiles to the nearest bed and re-situated.John sat behind him and pulled Stiles to his chest, careful of his cracked ribs.

“Feel me breathe and concentrate on slowing down to match me, okay?In and out.”

Stiles twisted his fingers in John’s jeans, hanging on with all his strength, and John soothed him through the panic, breathed slow and deliberate.Mini-Stiles bit his lip and stood at the end of the bed, torn between watching them and making sure no one came in.

“It’s just us here.You’re safe now.I’m here, I’m here.”

There had to be a limit on how many times his kid had trouble breathing on a given day.John rubbed slow circles over Stiles’s heart.It took a while but Stiles finally, painfully, came out of it. 

“There you are.I knew you could do it.”

“Everything hurts,” Stiles hissed.“All fuckin’ over.”

“I know, you went through a lot today.As soon as you’re ready we’ll get Melissa back in here, get you something for the pain.”

Stiles’s breath hitched.“‘m sorry, I panicked.Brunski was here.”

John closed his eyes, pained.“No, sweetheart.Brunski wasn’t here.You don’t have to worry about him.”

Stiles had been tetchy when John first asked how he had escaped the hospital all those months ago.Like he would rather have eaten his own foot that have that conversation.At the time it had been one thing of many that Stiles wanted to avoid and there had been other, more pressing matters to tend to with him.

He hadn’t thought much more about it until Stiles gave him the Brunski file. 

Even now John’s blood boiled thinking how that sadistic bastard had taken pleasure in drugging Stiles during his initial stay at Eichen House.John had to wonder, as a cop and as a father, if Brunski hadn’t gone farther than that, if he’d assaulted Stiles once he was under control and helpless.Even if he hadn’t, the incident had caused enough fear and distress for Stiles to manifest the skill.

“I thought he was,” Stiles whispered.“I couldn’t think straight.I still can’t.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to be able to do that right now.I’m here and I’ll make sure everything is okay.You’re safe.Do you believe me?”

Stiles nodded.

“Good.Is it okay if I move?I’d like to get you more comfortable.”

Stiles nodded again and John painstakingly maneuvered Stiles around so he was laying back.His face was pinched in pain with lines around his eyes.He grabbed John’s hand and held on tight.John looked down to his youngest.

“Go get Melissa, please.”

Mini-Stiles went without a word.John turned back to Stiles and said, “It’s going to be okay.Melissa’s going to give you something for the pain and get those antibiotics working again.You’ll go back to sleep but you don’t have to worry.I’m not leaving.I’ll be right here.”

“And Mini-Me?”

“He’ll be here, too.And he’s just fine.”

Melissa came back in with a handful of new medicines.She made quick work of getting Stiles fixed up again.Stiles never even looked at her.His eyes darted around the room but kept coming back to John, like an anchor point.The wild, fearful look in them slowly softened as the new drugs kicked in.

“Don’t fight them,” John said.“Let them do their job.”

Stiles’s eyes fluttered and he tried to keep them open but eventually he let go and relaxed back into the bed.Mini-Stiles hovered by John’s side.

“He should get some rest now,” Melissa told them as Shawn came back into the room.

“Tell me what happened,” John said. 

“He started twitching about thirty minutes after you left.I tried to get him calmed down but nothing helped.Then there was a surge of magic and he woke up.”Shawn ran a hand through his hair.He looked just as exhausted as John felt.“This was worse than it was at the loft.He didn’t recognize me, not until he’d flung himself halfway across the room and then the panic attack hit.I think everything came back to him at once.”

“But he knew me,” Mini-Stiles said.John squeezed his shoulder.

“And you tried to protect him.”

“He was _scared_ ,” Mini-Stiles said, as if he himself wasn’t also scared, his arms crossed tight and foot jiggling.“He just needed space.”

John pulled Mini-Stiles into a side hug and pressed his head into his side.Mini-Stiles wrapped his arms around John’s middle.John looked to Melissa.“Did he hurt himself further?”

“I’ll check him over but I don’t think so.My main concern is keeping that medicine in him where it needs to be.”

Melissa double checked Stiles while Mini-Stiles hovered nearby, unwilling to step back very far.Melissa, bless her, didn’t take offense, instead roping Mini-Stiles into helping her and explaining what she was doing the entire time and why it was important.

John stepped back with Shawn.

“He thought you were Brunski when he woke up,” John said in a low tone.“It wasn’t your fault.”

Shawn’s shoulders slumped.“Oh, shit.No wonder.”

“Yeah.”John pursed his lips and forced himself to take even breaths.“I’m giving you lead on that case, effective immediately.”

Shawn’s eyebrows shot up.

“If I get in a room with that monster he won’t walk out again.Even if he’s not a killer here.I will take him out with my bare hands.”

There was nothing John wanted more than to do just that but he couldn’t give in to that impulse.Not here, not now.His focus needed to be on the two boys in that room. 

Shawn’s expression said he would cover up the crime scene with no stain on his own conscience.

“I’ll take care of it.”

John nodded and went back to his boys.

Once Melissa was satisfied she thanked Mini-Stiles for his assistance and gave him a hug.He hugged her back hard and mumbled an apology into her shoulder.

“It’s okay, kid.He’s lucky to have you looking out for him.”

Mini-Stiles flushed bright red.

John settled back in the chair and Mini-Stiles joined him, climbing into his lap without preamble.Neither of them spoke for a while and Mini-Stiles was a bit too big but John made it work.He almost thought Mini-Stiles had fallen asleep until he heard a quiet, “Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Earlier you called me Mischief.”

John’s brain was exhaustion and fog as he processed those words.

“Was that okay?”

“You haven’t called me that since…”

Since Claudia passed.John shut his eyes, pained. 

“I’m sorry.I didn’t know if you would want me to.”

Mini-Stiles sniffed and made a show of scratching his nose so he could discreetly wipe his eyes.

“Could you start calling me that again?”

John pressed a kiss to his head.“Of course, Mischief.As long as you want.”

Mini-Stiles let out a big sigh as if expelling a large weight off his chest and settled in more comfortably.Then, a little quiet and sad, said, “He wanted to go home tonight,”

John tightened his hold around his youngest.

“It won’t be tonight but we’ll get him home soon.”

~

Stiles woke up naturally the next time.It was mid afternoon and his good side was trapped beneath something heavy and warm.Stiles blinked and looked down.The first thing he saw was a buzz cut that sharpened into Mini-Stiles.He wasn’t all over the place like usual but rigid in a tight ball. 

Stiles swallowed against the dryness in his throat and tried to remember something.Anything.He was clearly in the hospital.No mistaking the sounds or smell or the texture of the blanket.

He was sore.All over.As if he’d been beaten or stabbed or—

Or both on top of drowned.

Stiles tried to lift his free hand but found that trapped as well.He slowly tilted his head to the other side and found Dad there, holding on tight while asleep in an uncomfortable position in the chair next to the bed.He looked worn and ragged, they both did.

Stiles’s lip trembled and he blinked up at the ceiling.His mind was wobbly.All his thoughts and memories jumbled together with no clear organization.He was in the hospital again.Hurt again.It had been bad. What had he done?

He’d made brownies at some point.Or was it cake?No.Definitely brownies.And Lahey was above him but distorted, through water.And Mini-Stiles had stood in front of him like a rabid chihuahua and screamed at Brunski and—

A large calloused hand cupped his head and a thumb stroked his eyebrow.

“Welcome back, kiddo,” Dad said, voice rough but happy.

“Dad.”Stiles’s voice scratched up his throat. 

Dad shushed him.“Just relax, you’re okay now.”

Stiles leaned into the touch and his brain began to right itself.He remembered the trunk.The screwdriver.The clearing.Fighting back, holding on.

Drowning.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

Mini-Stiles could have died.Almost had.All because Stiles was stupid and left a threat out there and festering. 

“Look at me.”

Stiles lifted his eyes.

“You survived.You both did.There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

There was but Stiles was too tired to argue.Dad smoothed his hair back and then held a cup of water and a straw so Stiles could drink.When he was done every bit of energy Stiles had was sapped. 

“Get some more rest.”

“I already slept.”

“It’s okay to sleep some more.”

Stiles frowned because he didn’t really want to but apparently his body did and took the initiative. 

~

It went like that for a while.Stiles would surface and talk with John or Mini-Stiles for a few minutes and then go back to sleep.He got quieter and quieter each time.Something was going on in his head, twisting up and becoming a knotted mess.John wanted to reach in and stop it but it wasn’t the right time and there were more people in and out of the room as time went on.

When it came time for their interviews John sat in on both.Mini-Stiles was first during one of the times Stiles was still out. 

It took everything John had not to come unglued as his youngest relayed in painful clarity what happened from the moments before he was knocked out to the conversation between him and Stiles before the trunk opened.Shawn did the interview, which was good because Mini-Stiles knew him and was comfortable enough to be completely candid.

Each minute was sheer agony.John wanted a drink that he wasn’t going to allow himself, even later.All three of them were going to need therapy when this was said and done.

Then came time for Stiles’s interview.He was sitting up at that point.More clear headed than he had been before and even more quiet.He picked a spot on the blanket covering his legs and didn’t look up the entire time, talking to his knees, answering questions, detailing blow for blow what he could remember.

It was a completely dispassionate retelling, as if he were reciting dry history facts.The only time he showed any emotion was at the end of it when Lahey threw him into the pond.Stiles cut himself off and quickly wiped at his face before tucking his arms around himself as if for protection.

“Thank you, Stiles.That’s all I need.You did really good,” Shawn said, trying to catch his eye with a smile.

Stiles refused to look up or acknowledge that in any way.Shawn exchanged a worried look with John before he patted Stiles’s arm and took his leave to clean up the report for official purposes.John, once again, was thankful the bastard hadn’t survived long enough to walk out of the clearing.There wouldn’t be a trial, no long, drawn out spectacle in the papers.John wouldn’t be able to shield his boys from all of the fallout but at least it wouldn’t be on complete public display.

John drew Stiles into a hug when Shawn left the room.Stiles leaned into him but remained silent.

“It’s gonna be okay.It’s over now.”

~

Stiles stayed several more days in the hospital to finish out his rounds of antibiotics before they would release him.John had grown increasingly more worried as Stiles went nearly mute.Something was brewing behind his eyes, an ugly storm that was just waiting to break loose.And on the day he took Stiles home it finally did.

Mini-Stiles got the door and held it open while John helped Stiles in.John tried to get him to sit on the couch but Stiles shook his head.

“I need to talk to you.Just you,” he said, staring down at the floor the same way he had at the blanket on the hospital bed.

Mini-Stiles looked between them, suspicious and defiant.

“Go out in the backyard for now, okay?”He had a feeling this was something his youngest didn’t need to hear.“Go on.I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

Mini-Stiles looked between them for a minute but huffed.“Okay.”

He left and went out of the backdoor.They both waited until they heard it close.

“He’s going to try and listen in, you know that, right?”

Stiles limped to the wall and pressed his hand against it.Some sort of energy rippled through the room.

“Now he won’t.”

Stiles wobbled and braced himself on the couch.Then he straightened and cleared his throat.He looked like he was bracing for his execution.

“Go ahead and say it, please.”

“Say what?”

Stiles bit his lips and made a face, as though John were being difficult on purpose.“Just get it over with.Please.”

“Stiles, I don’t know what you’re asking me for.”John had an inkling but Stiles needed to say it in his own words.Both to make sure John’s assumptions were right and to make Stiles face his own words as they came out.

Stiles huffed and pulled at his hair.The words were slow coming and it was pissing Stiles off.John kept himself neutral as Stiles’s face flushed with frustration until it finally reached a tipping point.

“Yell at me.”

“What?” John hoped he had heard wrong.

“Yell at me!”Stiles finally met John’s eyes.“Scream, throw something, tell me you hate me, just get it over with, please!”

John’s heart wrenched as though it were breaking.

“Why would I do any of that?”

Stiles balled his hands up into fists.“None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me.I almost got your son killed.You should hate me for that.You have to hate me for that.”

“I don’t.And if you’re somehow forgetting, _both_ of my sons were taken by that maniac and almost died.Not just one.”

“I’m not your real son.”

Okay, screw neutral.

“So I just _imagined_ the whole thing at the pond where Shawn tried to restart your heart and I tried to make you breathe?Did I imagine the dread and the panic that I was too late?Was that not real either?”

Stiles shook his head and turned away, his thin frame shaking as he tried to contain his emotions and make John see things his way.

“You should hate my guts.Hell, I do.It’s all my fault.It started with me and I didn’t keep on top of it and he would have died.Just hate me, please.I deserve that.Just—just stop being so fucking soft with me, I can’t take it anymore.”

As if softness was a curse, a punishment. 

“You want less soft?Fine.How about this?Don’t you fucking _dare_ tell me what I should be thinking or feeling right now.”

Stiles backed up, shocked at the low growl of John’s voice. 

“I’m the one who decides what that is, not you.If I want to hate someone I have every capability of figuring it out for myself.But I will not hate you.Ever.”

“Why not?” Stiles pleaded like he couldn’t understand anything John was saying.“If it wasn’t for me your son never would have been kidnapped.He wouldn’t be having nightmares about that damn trunk.If it wasn’t for me he would have—he could have—“

“But he didn’t.My other son refused to let that happen.”

“He would have been better off if I’d never come here.”

Stiles flinched back when John advanced on him.He got right up in front of Stiles and gripped the back of his neck, leaning down slightly so they were level.“Look at me.Look at my eyes,” John commanded.Stiles looked everywhere else until John gave him a small shake.“I want to you watch me and listen so you know, a hundred percent, that what I’m telling you is the truth.Alright?”

Stiles swallowed.

“I will always be selfishly grateful that you came to this world.Because by doing so you ended up saving _me_.You saved me from having to bury my child and his best friend.If you’d never come here they would still have been out in those damn woods and that omega would have torn them apart.”

Stiles stared at John as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.John wasn’t surprised.Stiles never gave himself any credit for what was obvious.He was too busy making mountain ranges out of his own guilt and all the other guilt he stole from the people around him like a thief picking pockets.

“If you’d never come here I would have had to put him in the ground next to his mother and then I would have gone home right after and eaten one of my own damn bullets.”

Stiles tried to recoil but John wouldn’t let him.

“So don’t ever, _ever_ , tell me I should hate you or wish you’d never come here.I hate that coming here meant you lost everyone, but you turned around despite that and saved us in this world.We are _all_ here because of you.”

Stiles began to shake.Tears spilled over his cheeks and his chin quivered. 

“Do you believe me, Stiles?Am I telling the truth?”

Johns voice was thick and rough.He was crying himself but he didn’t look away or wipe them off. 

“Yes.”

It was so small but it was there and enough. 

John folded Stiles into him and Stiles broke.It wasn’t the quiet, hidden sobs from the hospital or the wild, angry tears from the cabin.It was a dam, long cracking and springing leaks, finally bursting to release all the pressure of grief, anger, and self hatred Stiles had been hoarding since well before the day he arrived in this world.

John wrapped him up and wished he could make everything better with a kiss and a glass of chocolate milk like he used to do for his youngest.But it wasn’t that simple anymore.

“I didn’t raise you but you’re mine.Now and always.I have two sons who are both real and who I love with every bit of my heart.You will always belong with me.I will always want you here.So, please, trust that I am capable of figuring out my love just as much as my hate, because you are only going to be included in the former no matter what.Okay?”

Stiles gripped the back of John’s shirt painfully and choked through his sobs.John held him for as long as he needed and cried with him.When Stiles finally pulled away, face blotchy and eyes swollen, he still hung on to John’s shirt like John would disappear if he let go.

“Would you really?” Stiles asked.“Would you have…?”

John closed his eyes and kissed Stiles’s forehead.

“Everyone has a breaking point.That one is mine.”John looked up at the ceiling and steadied himself.“It’s not something I ever planned on telling anyone, much less you.I’m not proud of it and I don’t want you to think that it’s an acceptable response, even though I know you’ve considered it given what’s happened.”

“Dad, I—”Stiles covered his mouth and a deep, wounded noise escaped his throat.

“But we’re all still here, Stiles.You got a second chance and look at what you did with it.”John smiled at him. “You protected us before we even knew you.You saved Scott and Mini-Stiles.And you saved me.I’m standing here because you’re standing here, and I’m always going to be grateful for that.”

“But if I hadn’t gone after Lahey, I—he—“

“Would have continued hurting Isaac.Maybe even killed him.But we can’t know what might have happened for sure because it never did.We live here and now, not in almost.All that matters is what we choose to do to keep going forward.”John let that sink in.“Will you keep moving forward with me?”

Stiles nodded fast.

“I need you to say it.”

“Yes, I will,” Stiles said.“I promise I will.”

Something horrible and tight finally uncurled in John’s chest. 

“Good, because I was gonna drag you along no matter what you said anyway.”

Stiles held his chest as a laugh snuck out and John laughed with him.He was going to cherish that sound for the rest of his life.

“Think we can let the little one back in now?”

Stiles sniffed and wiped at his face.“Yeah.He’s probably climbing the walls.”

John hoped it wasn’t literal but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was.He directed Stiles to the couch and went to the backdoor.Mini-Stiles was on the porch, slightly out of breath.

“You were yelling at him,” he said before John could open his mouth.“Why were you yelling at him?”

John gave his youngest a look.“Because he needed to hear something and wouldn’t listen.And how do you know I was yelling?”

Mini-Stiles made a face and rolled his eyes. “I was watching from the window, Dad, duh.”

John put him in a headlock and knuckled his buzzcut.Mini-Stiles yelped and pushed at him until John let up.

“Is everything okay now?Can we all just be at home finally?”

“Yes, it is and yes, we can.Go get in there and hug on him while I make dinner.He could use it, Mischief.”They both could.

Mini-Stiles perked up under the nickname.John hugged him, kissed his head, and gave him a push towards the living room.

When John peeked in there after he started cooking he found Stiles squished into a corner of the couch and Mini-Stiles backed up against his side with Stiles’s arm wrapped around him. The TV was on some cartoon they were discussing and arguing about. 

Around them the house began to breathe again.

~

The nightmares didn’t surprise Stiles.They were all having them.Dad would wake up with a choked off cry and then walk the house, checking on them, checking the doors and windows, before he finally went back to bed to try sleeping again.Mini-Stiles would start whimpering and sob in his sleep.

Stiles would fight back to consciousness bodily, sweat soaked with screams trapped in his throat, and stay up the rest of the night staring into the dark.His leg was still healing so climbing up on the roof was out until he was certain he wouldn’t fall like Dad feared.It hurt how much he missed it, getting out into the night air and watching the moon and stars. 

A few days after Stiles came home he was awake and breathing heavy, the phantom sensation of water clogging his lungs still starkly present.A small knock drew his attention to his doorway.Mini-Stiles was there clutching his pillow.

“You, too?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Stiles croaked.

Mini-Stiles came in and tugged at his arm.“Come on.Bring your pillow.”

Stiles allowed himself to be pulled along.He expected to go downstairs.Sometimes he’d done that when he couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake Dad.He could put the TV on mute and watch late night reruns of Star Trek with the subtitles.But Mini-Stiles didn’t turn toward the stairs.He went to Dad’s room.

Dad was also not asleep.He sat up when they hovered in the doorway.

“Mischief?”

“I’m initiating the Emergency Stilinski Sleep Protocol,” Mini-Stiles said without stuttering over that sentence once, which was impressive.

“The hell is that?” Stiles wondered.

To his surprise Dad didn’t bat an eye, just scooted over in the bed.

“Okay, come on.”

Mini-Stiles shoved at Stiles until he went to the other side of the bed and they climbed in on either side of Dad.

It was a bit cramped and Stiles felt kind of awkward.He hadn’t gone to sleep in his Dad’s bed since he was maybe twelve or so.Dad was always working and Stiles was old enough to figure out how not to go crying to Dad all the time but—

But this was nice.

“Try not to flop around and end up with your feet in my face, please,” Dad said to Mini-Stiles.

Mini-Stiles kicked at the blanket to create a warmth pocket for his feet.

“No promises.”

Mini-Stiles was out and snoring within minutes. 

“You okay?” Dad asked as time stretched on and neither of them fell back asleep.

“What’s the protocol thing?” Stiles asked instead of answering.

“He came up with it when he was younger.He can initiate the protocol no questions asked and sleep in here.But if it happens more than twice in a week we have a sit down to talk about it.”

“Huh.”

“You didn’t have that?”

“No.”

“Well, you do now.”

It still took a while to get to sleep but by morning Stiles was tucked up under Dad’s arm and had his shirt clutched in his hand.He hadn’t had another nightmare at all.

Mini-Stiles was upside down, head hanging off the end of the bed and feet over both of them.

~

Shawn came by Friday night with Derek and Laura in tow.Laura and Derek had shadows in their eyes but still smiled bright when they swept Stiles and Mini-Stiles up in careful but all encompassing hugs. 

“Good to see you up, Stilinski,” Laura said, nose buried in his neck, scenting him.

Stiles squeezed her back and held on longer than he normally would have.“Thank you,” he whispered.

Dad had told him what she’d done.Stiles was both thankful and saddened and understood the tremors in her hands and the look in her eyes.He pulled away and gave her a look he hoped conveyed all that.It was a shitty club to belong to, the Took Someone’s Life club, no matter that it had been justifiable.It destroyed something they wouldn’t get back again.

Laura sniffed and smiled despite her wet eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered.

“Let me know when you’re not.”

“Only if you return the favor.”

Laura held up her hand, pinky finger extended.Stiles hooked his in hers and they shook on it, a solemn promise.

She passed him off to Derek who wrapped him up and said nothing but didn’t let go, either, while Laura scooped Mini-Stiles up and twirled him around like he was a toddler.They only just managed not to knock over the lamp but only because Shawn took Mini-Stiles’s flailing feet in his side with an , “Oomph!”

“Okay, no breaking fellow deputies.Get on in here,” Dad called from the kitchen.

“Don’t do that again,” Derek managed.His voice was short and gruff and for a moment so familiar that Stiles’s breath hitched.

“Don’t plan on it,” Stiles promised.“Are you okay?”

Derek nodded and looked like he wanted to say something else but swallowed it back down.He settled for wrapping his hand around the back of Stiles’s neck and squeezing.Stiles closed his eyes at another stupidly familiar gesture and returned it.

Derek made a noise and relaxed.

Shawn patted his back and Stiles turned around in time to get squished into yet another hug.Shawn was out of uniform so at least there wasn’t a badge to poke his eye out.

“Selena, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to hear your dulcet tones again.But the hair, you have got to do something about that.”Shawn turned the hug into a headlock and messed Stiles’s hair up thoroughly before he let go.

“Ass,” Stiles said and tried to fix his hair back the way it was.

“Puddy tat.”Shawn twisted out of reach when Stiles tried to smack him.“We’re gonna work on your form again when you’re cleared for activity, that was sloppy as hell.”Shawn’s smile faltered for a moment.“It’s good to see you up and around.”

Stiles let out a breath.“Sorry for freaking out on you.Again.Thanks for being there and doing what you did.”He gestured at his chest.

It was still strange to know that he had been dead, effectively, and that Derek and then Shawn had tried to get his heart started.That Dad had breathed for him until they brought him back.He didn’t remember that.He remembered everything including going into the water and Lahey holding him under.Then he woke up at the hospital and thought Shawn was Brunski and nothing made any sense for the longest time.

He’d thought about death an awful lot the past few years. Kind of hard not to. He had wondered what it would be like to have his body fail completely. If he would wake up somewhere else. What he would see. He thought he would have remembered more of it.Maybe see a bright light, or the famous flashes of life before his eyes.

There had been nothing.  Absolute, complete, endless nothing in the space of time between blacking out underwater and coming to in the hospital.

Stiles did his best not to think about that during the day.Or night.Or ever.It was already one of his many nightmares and it scared him past shitless and well into Eichen territory.

Shawn bumped his shoulder.

“I’m always gonna be there, kid.”

Then Shawn knuckled his head and messed up his hair again.

Scott and Melissa weren’t far behind, arriving with bags of chips and drinks.Melissa kissed his cheek and Scott clung so tight with his hug that Stiles felt he might have bruises later.

Scott had bugged Melissa to bring him by the hospital non stop until she finally let him out of bed.His reunion with Mini-Stiles had been full of snot and tears and wheezy words no one could understand.

When he had peeled himself away from Mini-Stiles, Scott had clung to Stiles like a limpet with more snot and tears and a wheezy, “You saved my best friend.”

Which, at the time, had made Stiles feel lower than dirt.

Stiles hugged Scott back now and wasn’t surprised when he held on all the way to the kitchen before letting go.

Soon they were all crowded around the kitchen table, food spread out and conversation flowing around.Stiles found himself between Laura and Derek with Scott on his lap half the time and Mini-Stiles continually reaching over to put chips on his plate when they ran low. 

After dinner was cleared off someone produced a pack of Uno cards from the game cabinet.

“Oh, god.I thought we wanted tonight to be a nice night,” Stiles said.

“What?It’s just a card game,” Shawn said, shuffling the deck and passing out cards.

“Are we playing by the box rules or Stilinski rules?” Mini-Stiles asked in a way only a complete idiot stranger could have mistaken for harmless.

“I don’t want actual bloodshed here tonight,” Dad warned.

“What are Stilinski rules?” Derek asked.

Scott kept his mouth shut and was very interested in getting more juice all of a sudden. 

“Stilinski rules means you can make truces and betray people and when you get a Draw Four you get to choose who gets it instead of the person who goes after you,” Mini-Stiles explained.“Everything else is the same.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, I’m game,” Shawn said.

Stiles glanced over at his younger self who had an absolute look of devilish glee on his face.Stiles pointed at him.“We have a pre-truce now, remember?”

Mini-Stiles did a rapid double blink at Stiles— the patented Scott McCall double blink he did before he mastered how to actually wink— and glanced at Shawn.

“No mercy in Uno.”

Stiles bit down the evil grin that threatened to bloom and took a drink of his soda. 

The game was completely cutthroat with Reverses and Skips doled out ruthlessly and Shawn Hale found himself the victim of every Draw Four in the deck.Somewhat mysteriously and completely miraculously, Stiles and Mini-Stiles were the only ones who ever ended up with the Draw Fours to give. 

“There aren’t supposed to be that many Draw Fours in the damn deck,” Shawn complained as he struggled to hold more than forty cards in his hands.

Neither of the Stiles’s nor Scott elected to tell Shawn there had originally been three decks and that the Draw Fours were all piled together into one for the strategic purpose of fucking with other people.

Dad and Melissa had bowed out of the first round to do the dishes and then retire to the living room when they saw the way the game was going. 

After the fifth round Shawn finally conceded defeat.“Don’t think this is over, you two,” he said pointing his finger at each Stiles in turn, both of whom blinked with threadbare innocence.“Once I get you both back in the gym you’ll regret all of this.”

Stiles made a _come at me_ gesture.“Bring it, Barney Fife.”

Laura choked on her soda and Derek buried his face in his hands with a high pitched giggle.Mini-Stiles actually fell off his chair laughing and Scott, bless him, had no idea what that reference meant but the giggles infected him, too.

Stiles was going to pay so dearly for that remark, but the extreme affronted look on Shawn’s face was worth it and Stiles would cherish and relive the memory _forever_.

Shawn waved his arm.“You are all disowned.”

He retreated to the living room with the other adults and sulked on the couch as Dad and Melissa did nothing to hide their own snickering.

Teenagers and kids all ended up in Stiles’s room on the floor after that.Blankets and pillows had been pulled from everywhere except Dad’s room and they spent the evening with music playing and warred over Monopoly.Scott ended up winning that through a combination of puppy eyes and a mid-game break where Laura pounced on Derek for moving her piece where everything was upended and Scott bought Broadway with money he’d collected during the mess.

Stiles laughed more than he could remember laughing in a long, long time.Even when it hurt his chest he couldn’t stop.

“Hey,” Derek nudged him.“You okay?”

“It’s fine.Ribs are still kinda cracked.”

Derek exchanged a glance with Laura.“You want some help with that?”

“If you’re talking werwolf pain relief then, yeah.Always.”

But Laura didn’t take his hand.Derek did.

“Just like I showed you, Der-Bear.”

“Shut up, please.”

Laura made a sarcastic, _proceed then_ , gesture.

Derek made a face at her and then took a deep breath and closed his eyes to concentrate.Stiles had been on the other end of his Derek’s pain drain a couple of times.He’d never thought about how or from who Derek would have learned to do it. 

For a few minutes nothing happened.Then Stiles went sideways because the pain wasn’t taken in a steady stream like he was used to.It was all pulled out at once and the sudden absence and euphoria made the room spin.

“Whoa, whoa, easy.”

Laura caught him and half propped him up against herself.

“Holy fuck knuckles,” Stiles slurred.His whole body was limp and unresponsive.

“You with me, Stilinski?”

“I am so sparkly.”

The boys laughed a little, caught between amusement and concern.Derek, however, was doubled over and hissed as he shook his hands out.

“You went too fast, Derek,” Laura said, gently chiding.

“Is this how you feel all the time?” Derek demanded.

“What're you talkin' about?” Stiles asked.

“You had pain almost everywhere.Not just your chest.Deep aches in the bone and the muscle.”Derek rubbed at his wrists.“Do you feel like that every day?”

“I noticed that after you got jumped,” Laura said softly.“I thought you’d gotten hit a lot more than what Shawn had said.I didn’t realize it was continuous pain.”

Now everyone was looking at him in concern.Stiles should probably have felt embarrassed about that but he was floating way too high to care.He managed to flop his hand around and smack Derek’s knee with what he hoped was construed as affection.

“It is what it is, man.I ran with wolves who went up against monsters.I got hurt a lot.That shit tends to linger after a certain point.S’okay, though.I’ve only been beat up bad, what, three times since December?S’a record low for me.If I make it to my birthday without any more incidents it’ll be the longest I’ve gone without ‘em since I was…what, fourteen?Fifteen?That should help.”

That did not seem to comfort Derek like it should have.Stiles huffed.

“Don’t be such a sourwolf.I’ll be fine.I always am after a while.”

Stiles closed his eyes and hummed.Without any of his pain all he suddenly wanted to do was sleep.He was already as relaxed as he would ever get.Not even Laura’s knee digging into his kidney felt like a problem.

There were no problems anywhere.

“Let’s get him laid out,” Laura said.Hands picked him up and arranged him on the blankets.

Stiles didn’t remember falling asleep, but he woke up to a flash of light and found himself in the middle of a pile on the floor.Derek was holding him tight from behind.Stiles’s forehead mashed against Laura’s as she breathed into his face.Mini-Stiles sprawled on top of all of them and Scott drooled into Laura’s hair and was wedged halfway under the bed.

Stiles lifted his head to look around but Derek growled between his shoulder blades and kept him from moving too much.Stiles sank back down and went with it.

~

It took him two weeks to remember the flash of light that night and he only did because he was at Scott’s house to pick him up and saw the picture on the mantle.He thought he was dreaming at first but no, the picture was real, all of them puppy piled together asleep and completely not photogenic.A copy appeared in the living room at home later that same day.

A much bigger copy hung in Dad and Shawn’s office at the station and Diaz was in there _cooing_ at it with the other deputies while Dad beamed and Shawn smirked like the evil person that he was.

~

(Derek told him, mortified, that the picture had made it to the Hale house as well.An even bigger version than the one at the station now hung in their living room and smaller ones had places in all the various offices and the main Hales’s worked at.Copies were also going out in December as part of the pack Christmas letter.)

~

(Derek split the cost with Stiles and they printed out hundreds of pictures of Barney Fife and hid them all over the office, cruiser, and Shawn’s apartment in town.The cardboard cutout was, perhaps, a bit much, and they both felt bad Shawn’s girlfriend was who found that in the shower at four in the morning.)

~

The hospital bill came in near the end of the school semester.

Stiles got the mail while Mini-Stiles and Scott bounced around to the kitchen to get snacks.He thumbed through the letters, sorting them out, and felt his stomach drop to his feet at the familiar return address.

He didn’t think twice about pocketing the bill and opened it later when the boys were absorbed in their video games. Door closed, Stiles went weak in the legs and slid down to the floor as he made his way down the list of costs and finally came to the total owed.He covered his mouth and breathed through his nose and tried not to throw up.

Oh, he had fucked up. He had fucked up _so bad._

Stiles had no idea what the finances looked like anymore but he’d bet it wasn’t good enough to pay off that amount by the time Stiles was fifty.

He hid the bill in his vent and tried to act normal the rest of the day.He didn’t quite manage it if the looks Dad kept shooting him were any indication.

That night Stiles couldn’t sleep at all.He fidgeted and tossed and turned until he couldn’t stand to be in his room with the bill lurking like a tell-tale heart, the debt pressing in on Stiles like stones in his stomach.

He got up around two and went to Dad’s room.He hesitated, but rapped his knuckles on the doorframe.

Dad woke up and peered through the dark.

“I want to initiate the protocol,” Stiles whispered.

It was the first time he’d done so on his own.

“Okay,” Dad sad, his voice heavy with sleep.“Come on, kiddo.”

Stiles climbed under the covers.Dad was a warm and solid presence.

“I need to talk to you in the morning about something if that’s okay.”

Dad ruffled his hair.“Course it is.”

The next morning Dad got up and left Stiles cocooned in the blankets while he started breakfast.Stiles contemplated laying there for the rest of the day and putting off the conversation, but the churning in his gut drove him out.He needed to do this.He owed it to Dad to follow through first.

Stiles leveraged himself out of bed and went downstairs at a sedate, limping gait.The wound from the screwdriver had healed but there was always going to be some nerve damage.It mostly bothered him in the mornings anymore.When he was at school Derek insisted on taking some of it first thing and then again at lunch and when they got out.

He’d gotten better at not taking everything at once.Which was good, otherwise the nurse might have had Stiles drug tested on the spot.

He tried to tell Derek he didn’t need to do it every day.Stiles was fine.The pain was like his scars.He’d earned them and had to live with them, even when they hurt.And it wasn’t like it was bad all the time.

Derek would roll his eyes and call him an idiot.

Stiles had to admit he was getting a little spoiled.He really wanted some werewolf mojo just then, not only for the pain but for the stupid courage to say everything without fear that came with it because Stiles wanted to throw up.

Mini-Stiles was already up which meant he probably hadn’t slept much even if he hadn’t gone to Dad’s room.He was bouncy enough, though, darting around to get the plates and silverware out.

“Morning, kiddo.”

Dad passed Stiles a cup of coffee and pointed him to the table while cooked up eggs and toast for everyone.He kept glancing at Stiles, assessing him.Stiles drank his caffeine and tried to psych himself up for the pending conversation.

Dad dished out the eggs and toast and sat down with them.Mini-Stiles shoveled his down while Stiles picked at his.Every bite tasted like ash and it wasn’t fair because Dad’s cheesy eggs were always delicious.Dad was giving him that look again.That worried, I-know-something-is-up look.So Stiles bit the bullet and put his fork down.

“I need to tell you something.”

Dad gave Stiles his full attention.Even Mini-Stiles paused in his eating, egg clinging to his chin.

“Before I start, though, I, uh.”He turned to his younger self.“Can you get something from the attic for me?”

Mini-Stiles blinked.“The attic?”

“It’s a brown bag behind Mom’s cedar chest.Don’t open it, just bring it down.”

Mini-Stiles was off like a shot and back in less than ten minutes, cobwebs and dust streaking his pajamas.He haded the bag to Stiles and perched on his chair, curiously craning his neck.

Stiles bit his lips and passed the bag to Dad.Dad unzipped the side and startled, eyes wide in disbelief.

“What is it?” Mini-Stiles asked.

Without a word, Dad reached in and pulled out a wad of cash.

“Where did you get this?”

Stiles stared at the tablecloth like it was the most interesting thing in the world.“Remember when I was a vigilante?”

“I vaguely recall that phase, yes.”

Stiles traced a stain on the cloth with his finger.

“Well, one of the things I did with the drug dealers was clean out their cash stashes to cut off their operation funds.I gave a lot of it to their victims if I could find them.I only used a little for myself, just to keep me alive.That,” Stiles nodded to the bag, “Is what was left when you brought me home.”

Dad looked down into the bag, still reeling, and said, “How much is in here?”

“A couple hundred grand.Give or take.”

Dad sat back in his chair and blew out a slow breath.Mini-Stiles looked from the bag to Stiles and to Dad and back like he understood the words but not what they really meant.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

Stiles grimaced.“I didn’t want to get yelled at.And then one thing after another happened and I just…forgot about it, mostly?When I hid it I figured I would keep it back for an emergency.”

Dad regarded Stiles for a lengthy minute.

“Why are you telling me now?”

Stiles swallowed to stave off his nausea.“I saw the hospital bill in the mail yesterday.”A series of emotions played out over Dad’s face.Before he could speak, Stiles barreled on.“We were going to lose the house.In my world.We were still paying off Mom’s medical bills when all of mine started piling up between the hospital and Eichen House.”

Mini-Stiles’s eyes bugged out.Stiles carefully didn’t look at him.No doubt that would be a _fun_ conversation later.

“Even after Eichen rescinded the total because Brunski tried to kill me, it was still too much.If everything hadn’t gone to crap in the end we would have been evicted.And I know you’ll say it wasn’t my fault but it is and I’ve already had to stay in the hospital here twice so far and what they do isn’t cheap—“

Dad leaned forward and waved his hand.

“Stiles, we’re fine.You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Yes, I do!You shouldn’t get buried under all those bills like he did and—“

“Stiles—“

“Dad was always at work taking extra shifts.He worked himself to the bone.He tried.He tried to get out from under it all and nothing I did ever helped, all I did was make it worse for him and I…I can make it _better_ this time.So that’s—that’s what I’m doing.”

Dad closed his eyes as if in pain.When he opened them again he said, “The finances are fine, okay?There’s nothing for you to worry about, not even with your own stay.”

“But there will be,” Stiles insisted.“I’ve had surgery and stayed in there for weeks all combined and there was so much medication, I know how much _that_ costs, not to mention the ambulance and the follow up appointments—“

Dad moved around the table as Stiles began to spiral.Stiles closed his mouth and let Dad hug him.Stiles pressed his forehead against Dad’s chest.

“I can’t make the same mistake again,” Stiles pleaded.

“You’re not,” Dad insisted.“And it wasn’t your fault the first time around, either.”

Stiles was never going to accept that but he ignored it because he could only fight for the important thing, and that wasn’t his guilt right now.

“Take it, okay?Take the money.You don’t have to tell me if you use it or not, just take it so I know we’ll be okay.Please?”

Dad hugged him tighter and Stiles was too wound up to cry so his body began shaking instead.Little quakes in his hand and his feet traveled up his appendages and hit his chest like waves trying to tear him apart.

“Okay, it’s okay, I will,” Dad said, soothing him until the quakes became simple shakes and then mild aftershocks. 

Stiles slumped, exhausted as if he’d just run the entire length of the preserve.He slowly pulled away from Dad, not really wanting to but also needing to be somewhere else.Anywhere else.

“I think I’m gonna go lay down now.”

He scrubbed at his face and retreated as quick as his body would let him.Dad let him go.Stiles made it to the stairs but the prospect of climbing them was too much so he veered to the living room and stretched out on the couch.With his arms covering his eyes, Stiles counted his breaths until he began to relax.

They were going to be okay.It was out of his hands.He’d done the right thing.

Dad could take care of it now.

~

John and Mini-Stiles sat in silence, the bag of money in the middle of the table like some kind of bomb that might explode at any moment.

Then, Mini-Stiles looked up at him and asked, “Am I always that dramatic?”

John snorted and wiped at his wet eyes.“Oh, kid, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t.”

Mini-Stiles left his seat and went to lean into John’s side.John pulled him close and Mini-Stiles rested his head against John’s.

“What are you going to do with it?”

John pursed his lips, still reeling from the whole situation.He hadn’t lied to Stiles.John had insurance on both of the boys and while things might occasionally be tight, they were nowhere near dire.Anonymous donations had come in to help pay for Stiles’s first stay in the hospital.John had his suspicions about who’d made them but he wouldn’t deny that had helped tremendously.This particular hospital stay would be expensive, Stiles was, unfortunately, right about that.But it was doable between insurance and budgeting.

“Nothing right now,” John decided. 

The cop in him screamed that that money should be in an evidence locker, but the father in him shot that down.There was no way to put it there without calling dangerous attention to Stiles and he’d had enough of that for a lifetime. 

No one knew about the money except the three people in the house.That’s the way it would stay until John figured out how to deal with it.

“No one can know about this, Mischief.Not even Scott.”

Mini-Stiles pulled a face, affronted.“Scott’s not going to tell anyone, Dad.Besides, I’m his only friend.”

“Not even Scott,” John repeated, firm.He turned to face his youngest.“If anyone finds out about this money or where it came from then he could be a target again.Drug dealers are highly dangerous people and he cleaned them out and caused them all kinds of trouble, not to mention humiliation.If they find out he took their money and still has it?They’ll come after it.”

Mini-Stiles took that in, shocked at first, then squaring his shoulders, an angry frown on his face.John pulled him close.

“Promise me.”

“I promise, I won’t tell anyone.”

John kissed his temple and leveraged himself up.He felt like he’d aged twenty years in the space of breakfast. 

“I’m going to go put this away for now.Why don’t you get started on the dishes and I’ll come back down and help you.”

John took the money to his room and put it in his gun safe.He allowed himself a moment to process and bowed his head.He had to laugh as well.Every time he thought he had Stiles figured out the kid took another sharp turn in a direction John hadn’t even known existed. 

Claudia had been the same way.

John went back down and peered into the living room.Stiles was sleeping.Actually sleeping, not just pretending.John got the duvet from the recliner and spread it over him.His hand lingered over Stiles’s chest, his heartbeat steady and strong, and John took comfort in that.

Stiles was coming along.Slow in some ways, fast in others, and already a far cry from the raw, terrified boy John had found in the alley curled up as small as he could get.The money and confessions scared John but he was proud, too.Proud that Stiles had come to him, had trusted him to deal with it.

And John would.

Back in the kitchen, Mini-Stiles had scraped the plates and set them to soak.John took up his place at the sink and began washing them.Mini-Stiles was quiet while he rinsed and dried.When they finished John checked on Stiles again and, finding him still deep asleep, took Mini-Stiles to the backyard with a baseball and some gloves.

Mini-Stiles darted all over the yard like he’d been mainlining coffee.The shock of earlier was gone, replaced with bright exuberance and wide mouthed laughter like he didn’t have a care in the world.Like he didn’t have nightmares more nights than not, like he wasn’t constantly hyper aware of his older self’s location and general mental state even if he pretended he wasn’t.

His Mischief had all new worries and burdens on his tiny shoulders but he would come out of those bit by bit as well.

Kids were so damn resilient, it was the most amazing kind of miracle.

John stayed out with him until Mini-Stiles began to flag around lunchtime.John slung his arm around his son’s shoulders and ran a hand over his head.

“Gettin’ a bit long, there,” he said.“You thinking about growing it out?”

Mini-Stiles considered it but shook his head.“No, I like it short.You should probably do something about his, though.It’s long enough to put in a pony tail.”

John chuckled.“It’s definitely a…look.”

John had mentioned a hair cut to Stiles a couple times and Stiles had laughed him off.John wasn’t sure if Stiles just didn’t care much about his hair’s appearance anymore or if it was something he was holding onto, a last tie to his old world he couldn’t bring himself to part with yet.John didn’t push but his youngest was right.Pony tails could well be in their future.

Mini-Stiles beseeched John balefully.“Dad.Don’t encourage that, please.It looks awful.We need to take him to Patty so she can make it right,” Mini-Stiles said, referring to the woman who had been cutting his hair since he was running around in diapers.

“I dunno, Mischief, he might bring the mullet back into fashion.”

Stiles loosed a dramatic groan.“No!I don’t need that image in my head!Oh my god, Dad, it’s embarrassing.Wait.Did you— _You_ had a mullet, didn’t you?That’s horrible.Why would you do that?We can’t let him do the same thing, that’s just cruel.People will make fun of him and I’ll have to stage my own intervention.There’s no way I’m letting any version of me make that mistake!”

John threw his head back and laughed, reeling Mini-Stiles in and going back into the house. 

Stiles was awake and scowled at them, his hair sticking up at odd angles like a cowlicked porcupine.He had lines from the couch indented on his face that lent a deeper disgruntled expression to his face.

“It’s _not_ a mullet.”

Mini-Stiles gave him a look of pity and patted Stiles’s arm.“It really is and it’s not okay, but we’ll get it fixed.Patty is the best.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at his younger self and opened his mouth to retort.John just shook his head as the two argued back and forth.The twisted anxiety under Stiles’s skin was gone for the moment and Mini-Stiles was in his element, winding someone up and poking fun at them in rapid fire sequence until Stiles was so engrossed in the argument he forgot to be anything but an annoyed teenager.

The kids were not all right but they would be.They had each other, after all, and John was watching over them along with most of Beacon Hills now.


End file.
